Rating: 
Summary: Clancy mailed it in
Review: If this was the first jack Ryan book it would have been the last. Perhaps it was ghost written by the OP Center scribes
Rating: 
Summary: Buh-huh-orring
Review: I love Tom Clancy's work but I feel very let down by this latest effort. The book is extremely boring, with excessive inner dialog, repetitive jokes and references, and the only action in the entire book is the "hurry up and take a meeting" sort which is normally limited to the first third of a political thriller.The book does feature a lot of familiar players in addition to Jack Ryan, most notably Ed and Mary Pat Foley on their first few days in Moscow, but if you have read The Cardinal in the Kremlin then you already know these characters better than what Red Rabbit will show you. I was waiting with bated breath for Clancy's return to the Soviet-era intrigue which made The Cardinal in the Kremlin and The Hunt for Red October so good, and Red Rabbit did not fulfill that expectation. This book was written with the intention of providing a script for a new movie featuring Ben Affleck as Ryan, but I have no idea how any movie would be worth seeing if it's faithful to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Ryan returns to his roots, sort of...
Review: Tom Clancy has had a good run with the Jack Ryan series, starting with The Hunt for Red October, then the prequel Patriot Games, and a series that followed him after all the way to the White House. Unfortunately that seems to have boxed Clancy in a bit: now that Jack's the President, and had two books in the office, what further adventures can he have? The answer is to return him to the days when he was a novice CIA analyst, and have him be involved in some things we haven't heard much about before, spy stuff that's interesting, to say the least. One difference between this book and the previous ones is that the events involved aren't totally fabricated. This is, after a fashion, a modified historical novel, though it only takes place about 20 years ago. I won't give away the plot, or even what the premise is, because if you haven't heard the story it's a surprise. Suffice it to say that it'll make the Solidarity movement in Poland, and various other events of that era look completely different. We also get early looks at the other characters in the Ryan cast, from his wife to Admiral Greer, Dan Murray from the F.B.I., and even Ed and Mary Pat Foley, who work the Moscow station with aplomb as the Nick and Nora Charles of espionage. It's all very fun. I do have a couple of small quibbles. The characters say things like "thinking outside the box" and "been there done that got the t-shirt" that I believe to be sayings of the 90's, not the 80's, and practically none of the characters in the later books don't appear here. Even Mr. Clark appears briefly, though he's in someone's thoughts, rather than in the story. All of that being said, it's still a very good book, and I enjoyed it, especially the premise, which is very well-done and constructed and very interesting. Lastly, from the ending, you're not as curious as to where he's going from here with the series: the author leaves a large hint there will be a sequel following this book.
Rating:
Summary: TALKY AND TEDIOUS
Review: Without a doubt, this book is a must for fans of Jack Ryan, the character who dominates most Tom Clancy novels. The story in "Red Rabbit" fills a gap in our knowledge of Ryan's life. However, Clancy could have done a lot better by Ryan. This novel is talky to the point of being tedious. The characters, American, British, and Russian, seem to say the same things again and again. And talk is about all the story consists of.
That snapping, twisting action and suspense that we have come to expect of Clancy is missing here. Part of the problem, of course, is that we already know that the Pope, who was attacked in the nineteen-eighties, survived the assassination attempt. The other part of the problem is that Clancy does not create any real suspense in the process of giving us his fictional version of how it all occurred.
In fact, the plot is ponderous and stretched far too thinly. Clancy wrote an extremely good novel once about the spy game between America and Russia. It's called "The Cardinal of the Kremlin." If you are not a big Jack Ryan devotee, but you want to read Tom Clancy when his writing and plotting crackled with tension, try "Cardinal of the Kremlin." You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: I'M sorry I "red" RABBIT
Review: Oh No! A Tom "Clunker". This filler of a book between Patriot Games and Cardinal of the Kremlin is as exciting as STAR WARS Episode II. I understand a prequel or a sequel but these "midquels" have no surprises and are redundent. Len Deighton did it with great success but there was alot of mysteries to solve. In the first 100 pages, he repeats himself in this book dozen's of times(chess analogies,lawyer joke(not jokes),origin of KGB building,etc) Great title,read title and then throw away unopened book.I Loved his other books,so sad.
Rating:
Summary: Tom Clancy and Jack Ryan try to get back to the basics
Review: Tom Clancy's last Jack Ryan novel, "The Bear and the Dragon," was a certifiable disaster. In an attempt to keep toping his previous novels Clancy stopped short of an outright alien invasion and had Jack save the world when Russia and China go to war. For the me the unpardonable sin was that unlike every other Tom Clancy novel, "The Bear and the Dragon" did not have any scenes I wanted to reread again and again from time to time. So when Clancy decided to go back in time to those thrilling days when Jack Ryan was still the new kid on the block at CIA and Admiral Greer's fair-haired boy, I thought it was a good move. "Red Rabbit" takes place in between "Patriot Games" and "The Hunt for Red October," but because it takes place more in the real world, do not bother yourself with making things fit exactly. There are plenty of real figures running around in this one, although not the Queen and Prince Charles, good friends of Sir John and Lady Ryan that they are, but rather KGB head Andropov, a Polish Pope, an American president who used to be an actor, and a female British Prime Minister. When I began reading "Red Rabbit" I thought it was obvious that Clancy wanted to write about the downfall of the Soviet Union. After all, he dedicated two of his books to Ronald Reagan as the man who won the war. But the straw that broke the camel's back was Reagan's endorsement of SDI (a.k.a. "Star Wars") because the Soviet Union broke the bank trying to keep up spending money it did not have and the problem is that it this effect was unanticipated (a nice way of saying there was a major element of luck involved). Clearly Clancy wants to do a little historical revision along those lines, not that there is anything wrong with that. However, that quickly becomes a side issue in "Red Rabbit" which has two major plot threads. The first is Andropov's decision to assassinate the Pope for threatening to support the counterrevolutionists (i.e., union workers) in Poland. The second is the defection of a member of the KGB (the "Red Rabbit" of the title). Of course, the two threads come together. Meanwhile, Jack putters around England with little to do while Ed and Mary Pat Foley are having all the fun in Moscow. There is an element of suspense involved and if you are surprised seeing as how you remember that Pope John Paul II was not assassinated way back when, then you have probably never read/seen "The Day of the Jackal" or "The Eagle Has Landed." No, the complaints about this novel are going to have more to do with how often it seems like Clancy is covering old ground, from the minute details about running agents in Moscow to Bob Ritter having a cow every time Ryan does anything. I was troubled more by how the back and forth between the two plot lines finally gives way to the predominance of one and then the other. This reflects Clancy's tendency to covers the reader's eyes and ears at key points so he can set something up, but is not especially justified by this particular story line. "Red Rabbit" is an okay Jack Ryan novel, constituting a sort of back to basics in terms of espionage. There are a few decent scenes worth a second look, but nothing like the treasured scenes I recall from novels past. We might have to get use to the idea there is not going to be another great Jack Ryan novel. I really think Tom Clancy needs a stronger editor. Not just one that would have stopped him from doing "The Bear and the Dragon" (he had set up the possibility of a novel about a presidential campaign, which would have worked well off of the whole rebuilding the government from scratch idea he had been developing), but one that points out to him that he has various characters making the same comments two or three times. Did nobody bother to look or did no one dare to mention it to the author? Then again, maybe the simple irony is that Tom Clancy's writing career has achieved the same sort of destructive momentum of Jack Ryan's career as a character.
Rating: 
Summary: One Of The Best Of The Year
Review: I rank Tom Clancy's "Red Rabbit" as one of my favorite best books of the year so far along with the less-known "Blackhawk Down" by Bowden and even lesser-known "West Point" by Remick. Clancy spins another clever fictional drama in "Red Rabbit" that is full of the usual detail of Clancy books.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting Thriller
Review: Not many thrillers have done what Tom Clancy's "Red Rabbit" has. This book kept me happily turning pages hour upon hour until I reached the climactic ending. You're probably thinking that a ton of books could do that. They can, but not as good as Tom Clancy has done here. Some novels are just mysteries that involve a simple murder and don't get into technicalities and what not. "Red Rabbit" is a techo thriller that, like Clancy's previous novels, includes a lot of information on foreign countries, international politics, government agencies and the way that they are run, and many other interesting things. While getting ultimate entertainment in this book you will learn a plethora of things on what was listed above. Tom Clancy fans know the character of Jack Ryan as the president or the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This book takes place way before Ryan's career took off as in this book he has a job as an analyst at the CIA. In addition to the character of Jack Ryan there are many other main characters such as Ed Foley, a worker at the US Embassy in Russia, many of the good guys of both English and American intelligence agencies, and Russian terrorists. All of the characters are three dimensional and are very believable. Tom Clancy shows many of the characters' work and family lives, which add to the depth of each character. The plot of this book is as follows. Russian terrorists feel that the Catholic Pope can be a threat to their country because of a certain communication between the Pope and Poland. In addition, a few of Russia's past leaders felt that the Pope should be killed. Because of this a terrorist group plans a plot to assassinate the Pope. Will the good guys stop the assassination attempt? Read this great book and find out. As with other novels by Tom Clancy he has come up with a scenario that can possibly happen. While this story is not as extreme as some of his others in a sense of the future of the world, this book still presents a scary scenario, though. Clancy's writing is simple and easy to read and never gets bogged down with unneccesary passages. I felt that the plotting in this book was done very well and that not one word was wasted. Everything in the book pertained to the plot which makes for a great read. Fans of Tom Clancy, thrillers, or anyone that finds the plot of this book interesting is in for a treat. "Red Rabbit" is a fast paced novel that will definitely be enjoyed. Happy Reading!
Rating:
Summary: Not a bad Tom Clancy book
Review: I have rated this book 3 stars in comparisom with other Tom Clancy novels. Compared to other books by other authors, it could well rate higher. But compared to other Tom Clancy books, it's only a 3. Why a 3? Well overall this book is probably better than "The Bear and the Dragon". However, it does not measure up well when compared to "Hunt for the Red October", "Clear and Present Danger", "The Sum of all Fears", or "The Cardinal of the Kremlin". For starters this book is far more linear than any of the books listed above. One of Tom Clancy's greatest assets as an author was to be able to take seemingly unrelated plot lines and bring them together. This doesn't happen in "Red Rabbit". In that sense it's much more like his last couple of books. Also, Clancy seems to repeat himself a lot in this book. For example there are several occasions in the book where the same characters have almost exactly the same conversation. This is quite obvious. While Clancy has obviously made an effort to go back to Jack Ryan's roots, he does not succeed as well as he did when breaking away from Jack Ryan in "Rainbox Six". And this book certainly isn't what his earlier books were. But overall this is not a bad Tom Clancy book, just not a great one. Clancy does have a workable plot, but the twists that marked earlier novel endings are not really there. Certainly the book didn't keep the reader guessing. Worth reading - probably. But certainly not a book you can't put down.
Rating:
Summary: Slow Going, But Totally Absorbing
Review: Let me start by saying I'm not a regular Tom Clancy reader. Nothing against his work, which I find well written and plotted, but I'm more drawn to nonfiction. A friend of mine loaned me this book on a dare, so to speak. He had not yet read it and was interested to see what I would think with no previous editorial comment. He knew I had read some nonfiction books on the subject of this novel (the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II)and wanted to get my "take" on how well the book stuck with the established facts. So, I figured, 'what can I lose?' I found the book a slow go at first, as compared with other novels by Clancy I have read, but once firmly enmeshed, so to speak, the rewards are plentiful. The characters are well drawn and the history is dead on and the speculation right to the point. I got the feeling of actually being there, whether at a Politburo meeting or on the street with the book's heroes Ed Foley (CIA station chief in Moscow) and his agent-wife Mary Pat. To my surprise, and delight, Jack Ryan is only a supporting player, proving Clancy is capable of other scenarios. One word, though, if you are looking for suspense, you won't find that much as compared to previous novels, but the speculation and conspiracy notions are more than enough to overcome this and by the end of the novel one won't even have noticed, for that is exactly how absorbing this book is. In fact, I was so taken that I have since bought the book for my permanent library.
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