The Teeth of the Tiger

Rating:
Summary: Weak but still fun
Review: This is not Clancy's best and may be his worst but fans (like me) will/do still like it to a limited degree.
Set in the future when President Ryan is in retirement (don't ask what happened to Robby) along with Mary Pat and her husband and one time Secret Service Agent Andrea, who is about to go off and raise cattle in Maine with her hubby.
Clancy's hero is Jack Ryan Jr. and, wait for it, his two cousins who just happen to be a super shoting FBI agent and a killing machine Marine. The setting is, natch, Islamic terrorists attacking America--and how this Tiger bites back!
Okay so far, you say. Well, the big catch is that for a thriller to work, the bad guy has to be worth opposing ---but this one isn't. The characters are paper thin and the plot, aside from a few asides, the most boring yet from Clancy...all of which makes the struggles of the hero hardly worth reading about.
In fact, I suspect Clancy was just bored: he has resorted to over-worn thriller cliches, including the unthrilling coincidence of having the two top notch US assassins on the scene when terrorists strike a mall and having our hero work for a totally unknown secret private anti-terrorist agency that isn't even known to exist by POTUS. Add in a new top secret drug that kills a man in 30 seconds (maybe this one does exist but it's still sold as mini-SciFi) and you have little more than a re-run of the Man from Uncle!
Lord, I can't tell you how disappointed I was ...maybe poor sales will make this author try just a little bit harder next time around. 'Cos if he doesn't ..........

Rating:
Summary: Hunt for Tom Clancy
Review: Where has the Tom Clancy that we all know gone???
I read this book in one day - I could not put it down. That's not to say that I found it captivating - but I kept reading to find out what the twist was going to be.....it never came.

I thought the idea of 'the campus' (a privately run espionage agency) was laughable at best, but thought 'what the hell, we've read enough about the CIA, this could be refreshing'. Oh, how wrong I was!!

Then to introduce Jack Ryan Jnr., and his two cousins (who just happen to be fraternal twins) and who, from memory have never been mentioned in any of his previous works, was ridiculous... but I read on anyway.

I could not understand the need to spend 5 or so pages descibing the early childhood and subsequent career of the Mossad agent only to kill him off a few pages later and then not tie that into the story apart from mentioning that it was a joy kill for the story's "BAD GUY" (a phrase used about 300 times throught the book).

And Tom, maybe it's just me, but if you are going to introduce two main characters, for God's sake don't give them nicknames. I had to start taking notes to try and keep track of who was talking to who - was it Enzo or Aldo? or maybe it was Brian. No wait, I think it was Domonic!! or was it Jack Ryan Jnr. who couldn't seem to go one paragraph without referring to his father, grandfather, mother, sisters.....

Who wrote this drivel, Tom Clancy Jnr. or his twin cousins Alberto and Gino?????

I have read all the Jack Ryan series (with the exception of Red Rabbit) and loved every one of them. While most (not all) were verbose in the description of characters and their thoughts, the plot was that good that it was easy to forgive and even overlook it. In this book he takes the term 'verbose' to an entirely new level altogether and the plot is that bad that I found myself constantly skimming pages to get back to the story.

The countless errors (already mentioned by other reviewers) contained throughout the book made me draw the conclusion that this story was written on a roll of toilet paper while Mr. Clancy was drunk and suffering from an extended bout of verbal diarrhoea.

The ending...well what can you say? It just ends!! A 20 year old graduate, come intel analyst, come assassin (after only 2 weeks or so) kills a "BAD GUY", casually says goodbye to his two cousins, jumps on a plane..... and that's it.

I for one, will not be rushing out to buy the next installment to see how two "BRO'S" and a "CUZ" manage to neutralize an International Terrorist organization with a laptop and two neurotoxin injecting pens. Sounds more like a Macgyver episode than a true Tom Clancy novel.

Shame, Tom, Shame. If you refund the hard earned money I spent on this book and promise to write a serious novel next time (and not a comedy) then I just may reconsider putting you back on my list as "One of the best".

Rating:
Summary: Oh Man....
Review: I thought Red Rabbit was horrible, but man, this is horrible! The Teeth Of The Tiger is about a secret organization called 'the campus' where it is a anti-terrorism organization (sort of what Rainbow is). So now we meet Brian and Dominac; Brian is a former FBI agent, while Dominac came back from fighting in Afghanistan to join the organization. Then we meet Jack Jr. now a grown man and ready to follow in his father's footsteps when Jack Ryan was hunting down the Red October, and getting the Special Forces in Columbia after a failed operation to get rid of the Cali drug cartel.
So now, terrorist hook up with the Cali cartel in Columbia to sneak them in America so that the terrorist can attack a shopping mall in D.C. So now, Brian and Dominac go into the mall to shop for some new shoes and they discover the plot. So then Jack Jr. Brian and Dominac head to Europe and get the main man for coming up for this operation.

So why the one star? For one, Clancy got LAZY with his writing, and he calls the terrorist 'scumbags'. He is VERY RACIST toward the Arab characters in this book, and him writing that it takes Brian and Dominac 30 minutes to run a mile, for one these men were fit, so why would it take them 30 minutes to run a mile? I can walk a mile in 30 minutes. The book is POORLY written and it begins good, but is SAGS like a poor swimmer who is sinking in water. I felt this novel had potential, but Clancy didnt take his time and I felt that he would just retire.

Rating:
Summary: A Clancy novel that simply doesn't thrill
Review: Perhaps we expect more out of authors so highly acclaimed internationally with resultant wealth and fame based on their writing. Tom Clancy has written two clunkers in a row. In fact, the current work is quite incomplete.
A secret organization called "the campus" has been set up outside of Washington D.C. Whose function is to assassinate political figures all over the world. Recruited into this covert organization is a couple of brothers Dominic Caruso, rookie FBI agent and his brother, Brian, a Marine captain. The third one is their cousin, Jack Ryan Jr., son of the US President (without his father's knowledge). The first part of this book concerns the recruitment of these three alternating with the gradual exposure of a terrorist plot in the US. The second part of the book concerns the work of the agents in hunting down and killing the culprits of the plot.
The strength of a Clancy novel is the realism of the plots. After all, in a previous novel Clancy used a commercial aircraft as a missle into government buildings. Hopefully, he is wrong in the type of terrorism used in this book. However, in his quest for realism, he goes into way too much detail sacrificing pacing and suspense of a typical thriller novel. When the terrorist plot is finally revealed and carried out it is almost anticlimactic. The bottom line, a Clancy novel that simply doesn't thrill.

Rating:
Summary: Please Tell Me That This Is Not Tom Clancy!
Review: This is by far the worst Tom Clancy book I have read. I thoght Red Rabbitt was bad, but this is even much worse. When Clancy first started writing novels, plots were well developed as were characters. Much like Sid Meier's computer game of the same name, Hunt for Red October, was superb. So much so, that the U.S. Naval Institute (a group of former naval officers)for the first time in their history published Clancy's book as a unknown author. Most of the rest of the Jack Ryan series were similarly taut. Now that Mr. Clancy has developed into a full blown businessman (he owns part of the Baltimore Orioles, for example), he seems to have forgotten his readers, the folks that got him his fortune. Teeth of the Tiger is actually boring in spots and comes across as well as a first draft of a freshman english essay. I forced myself to wade through most of the book only to be set up for a sequel at the end. If Clancy thinks that his name recognition alone will sell his books, he may start wishing that he was still selling insurance, the job that he had prior to his first book.

Rating:
Summary: Jack II
Review: This novel is short on pages for a Clancy novel. And a fast read. But it looked as if he did not do the research he normally does for his books. He may have put this one out a little too fast. And when I read the last word of this novel...I was expecting to turn the page to continue. It is as if this is just the first half of the novel he intended. Now with all that said, I still enjoyed reading it.

In this book we have Jack Jr. and his two cousins joining an organization who's sole purpose is to eliminate known threats to the USA. The book starts with the recruitment of Jack's cousins, an FBI agent and an active U.S. Marine Corps Captain. And Jack Jr. comes knocking at this super secret agency's door looking for a job right out of college. They are then exposed to terrosit activity on home soil. The rest of the book follows our heros as they hunt down and assissnate those they know had a part in this terrorist act.

Rating:
Summary: Come on Tom
Review: Having read most of Tom Clancy's books, and finding Rainbow Six to be my favorite, I am supremely disapointed with this book. Tom Clancy has certainly found his niche when it comes to writing (Terrorism seems to be a good topic for him) but this novel fell short, figuratively as well as literally, of what I would expect from someone of Mr. Clancy's reputation.

There were four great flaws that I saw in the book. One was that the main terrorist attack occured and was resolved halfway through the book, rendering the rest of the book pointless. Second was that the dialogue between the two Carusso brothers almost seemed childish after awhile. No one, not even Brigadier General's who've spent their entire lives in the military communicate soley in military speak. Every response was a "roger" a "negative" or a "roger that bro." I mean, come on... are we really expected to believe that there is anyone who talks like that on a regular basis. Thirdly, it's highly unlikely that the two brothers would be recruited in the way that they were (in fact, it's highly unlikely that a black ops agency that specializes in counter-terrorism would ever put two brothers together in those types of situations. It was also a bit arbitrary how the "targets" were chosen for the brothers assignments. It almost seemed as though the individuals running the "campus" just took turns throwing darts at a poster with lots of terrorists faces on it and whomever the dart hit, that was the next target. Finally, the book didn't end. It just stopped.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Tom Clancy fan, but these disappointments compel me to plea... come on Tom!!!

Rating:
Summary: Roger that.
Review: Having read all of Clancy's novels with the exception of Red Rabbit, I would have to put this one in the lower half of his work. The editing seems a bit lax (somehow Sacramento became Provo) and Clancy's own research was flawed in two places: The direction of Mecca from anywhere in the eastern USA would be to the North East (not the South East)... think Great Circle. Later, hw wrote that there are 42 suras in the Qur'an when there are in fact 114. This is quite unlike him. I also felt the dialog became a bit much "Roger that.". I think the new direction is a good thing, but perhaps having all three characters related is a bit odd.

Rating:
Summary: Good 1rst half!
Review: Your age is showing but the intrigue is as alive as ever! In spite of Toms preachy filler and sometimes glacial plot movement I am a huge fan. This thriller starts off with the normal Clancy hook and then drags us to a sprint in the middle of the story. Unfotunately it stops there.

WHAT HAPPENED??! Increasing from a book every two years to this "Tiger" in one has provided half a story. Even when a novel is short it needs to end.

My advice is to wait to the second part of this tale to be released and then read them back to back. I hate to put a book down in the middle but that is what Mr. Clancy has forced on us with The Teeth of the Tiger.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up
Review: It is exciting for Tom Clancy to introduce us to his second generation of heroes with a timely and exciting plot. It was, however, at times predictable and lacking in the poltical intrigue endemic of his other books. This was a fine read, but I wouldn't recommend it over his other works.