Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not the best
Review: FIRST UP, i'd like to point out a typo ! I'm wondering if I'm the first ( i doubt this.. ) - p423"not is this lifetime, Foley thought ..."
. ^^^^
should be
"not in this lifetime,..." since I have not yet completed Red Rabbit, I won't be presenting any spoiler type obstacle.. (I am about 3/4 through) Red Rabbit starts off well, introducing us to everyone as per usual, getting the individual stories rolling etc.. but, up to now, nothing has really happened. This would be fine if it were full of suspense and intrigue, but unfortunately it isn't.
Dialogue and characterisation are first rate as ever, but the fact is, I am a bit disappointed. I am in a position to judge this novel against Tom Clancy's other work as I have read ( and in many instances, re-read) all his past work.. Advice : Clancy fans, buy and read this one, just for completeness' sake
Non-Clancy fans, buy and read Hunt for Red October, or Red Storm Rising. After you read either of these two go and indulge in Debt of Honour.
Rating: 
Summary: Where did Tom Clancy go?
Review: I am amazed at what a step down this novel is from Clancy's other works. Too long for this plot, too unimaginative. Compared to his other works, this is like a snail on valium.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing at best
Review: Unfortunately, this is quite boring and disappointing to me. I expected a lot better from Clancy, but I suppose that now that he's "made it", he can turn out boring books and feel confident that people will purchase them anyway. I for one will not read Clancy anymore, there are a lot better writers of this type of technothriller out there. He's lost his touch. Save your money - don't waste your time on this one.
Rating:
Summary: A 200 page novel jam-packed into 618 pages!
Review: The old windbag does it again! He repeats the same stuff over and over again in the book and paraphrases from past novels. For example, practically every major character in the book repeats a variation of Stalin's famous question, "How many divisions does the Pope have?" This guy clearly has too many people telling him exactly what he wants to hear and he's let it go to his head. His writing style is morphing into the kind of Ann Coulter-ish ranting that extreme conservatives seem to crave. You couldn't give me this book. I borrowed one from my local library. I suggest you do the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Another good one from Clancy.
Review: I think "Red Rabbit" is a definite improvement over "The Bear and the Dragon" and for that reason I give it 5 stars. Clancy spins a fictional tale around the real-life assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II. While it can be difficult to write an interesting story when the outcome is known, W.E.B. Griffin has shown time and again that an interesting and fast-paced story can be written, and I think this is what Clancy has done with "Red Rabbit". For veteran Clancy readers, this novel takes place between "Patriot Games" and "The Hunt for Red October". Jack Ryan is new to the CIA has just been stationed in London. Ed and Mary Pat Foley have just been placed in Moscow. Admiral Greer and Bob Ritter are in their usual posts. In addition to the story, I enjoyed some of the commentary on the events of the day. For example, the 1983 baseball pennant race and a certain new coffee house chain in which Ryan just invested. Also, if the portrayal of medicine in England is accurate, I'm glad I live in the United States! I strongly recommend this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Not a re-read
Review: Very much a let down. I have never found my self hoping for the end of a Clancy book, but at about the 450 page mark, I was bored and waiting for the end, which came rather abruptly. Why have his last three books ended so quickly? I so not see the reason to put the Jack Ryan character into a real life situation that everyone knows about in one way or another. Any Clancy fan knows the Pope is not killed in the assassination attempt, and there was no drama, or signifigance to this novel. Come on Tom, get back to the basics. Fictional situations presented in a believable way, with a good, solid story. We already know the older characters, and do not need to re-visit them. How about Ben Goodley as a new main protaganist, because as much as I love the series and Jack Ryan as a character, he is getting a little long in the tooth.
Rating:
Summary: Read Cardinal or Red October again instead...
Review: I was hoping Red Rabbit would restore my faith in Clancy after his horrible attempt with Bear and the Dragon. But it didn't. This book was not as bad as the previous, but is a far shot from the Clancy of old. The beginnings of this novel hint that it is going to get away from the war-scale plots of some of the recent books and get back to the real spook stuff like from Cardinal of the Kremlin, but fails to deliver. In this novel flashback, Jack Ryan and the Foleys get wind of a KGB plan to whack the Pope, and get their hands on a defector from inside KGB communications. Eventually these two plot lines come together, but that's about it. Where are the various characters and diverse subplots that come together of previous Clancy novels? There aren't any. And where are the last minute problems and glitches that the spooks have to work their way through? There are none! The plan to steal away the "Rabbit" goes off without a hitch just the way they planned it from the beginning. That's suspense??? Clancy can hardly find words to fill the pages of this book as he repeats the same stories over and over until you just decide to skip paragraphs here and there. Okay Tom, Cathy hates Jack's smoking, Jack hates being called "Sir", and Ritter has "conniption fits" left and right, I GOT IT! You don't need to tell me a million times. The so called climax of this book comes after 575 pages of Clancy reminding us Jack isn't a field officer, doesn't have the training, and doesn't want to do it. But then we find standing in the middle of St. Peter square assessing the tactics of how the assassin will try to kill the Pope??? Basically none of this book seems to mesh. I'd say wait for it to come out in the theaters, but I wouldn't have much hopes of it ending up there, either.
Rating: 
Summary: Did I read the same book...?
Review: I must have picked up the wrong book at the store. They must be selling two different "Red Rabbit" books by Tom Clancy. While I'll agree it's not the best Clancy book I've read, it was a good read, and a quick read. I stumbled through Debt of Honor on and off for several months, but I finished Red Rabbit in under a week. I also thought The Bear and the Dragon was better than most reviewers, it seems, though. The one thing about this book was that it told a fictionalization of true events (somewhat, at least). I've not read many novels that fit into that category and pulled it off as well as Clancy did with Red Rabbit. Now, having said that, there were parts of the book that I felt could have been left out - about 50 pages or so toward the end (around page 500 or so). Also, I'll readily admit that I enjoyed Rainbow Six more than Red Rabbit - but Rainbow Six isn't Ryanverse.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Yarn - But Too Predictable
Review: I have read all of Tom Clancy's novels. Since Jack Ryan in his later years solved the Arab-Israeli conflict, beat Japan, beat Iran/Iraq, beat China and saved Russia, he's run out of things to do as President. And, given that Harrison Ford has been deemed too old to play Jack Ryan, Mr. Clancy needed to go back in time to create roles for the callow Ben Afleck. Hence, Red Rabbit - a story from the Cold War, akin to the Cowboys and Indian movies. I enjoyed this book because I enjoy the characters - most of whom come from the other Ryan novels. Admiral Greer, Judge Moore, Bob Ritter, the Foleys ect. all populate this book. Yet the plot seems quite derivative from other books. Because of this, there are no surprises in how the story develops. I'd like to see Tom tackle a new area - such as Al Queda - with a new set of characters. Or as someone else suggested, how about a novel where Jack runs for re-election? For hard-core Clancy fans, Red Rabbit is okay. If you're just starting with Jack Ryan, I'd recommend Patriot Games or the classic Hunt for Red October.
Rating:
Summary: Unexpectedly disappointing
Review: As an avid fan of Jack Ryan, I faithfully read the first 250 pages, waiting for the plot to develop and the action to accelerate; I finally gave up, read the last 30 pages, just to check there wasn't more to the book, and sure enough, there wasn't. Reading the book was tedious; even the usually flavor-enhancing techno-details were just flat. The husband-wife dialogue between Jack and Cathy, Ed and Mary Pat ranged from uninspired to coarse; Clancy seems to have lost touch with real people involved in deep relationships. Without plot or character development, all that was left was a tiresome tract on the virtues of capitalism and the obvious bankruptcy of philosophical atheism; no argument with the thesis, but why does Clancy pontificate on these topics in what appears to have been written as a novel? A theorem of information theory states that what is predictable carries no information; eliminating the predictable, and thus uninformative, this book could have been reduced to about 3 pages. Unexpectedly disappointing.
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