The Teeth of the Tiger

Rating:
Summary: Chelsea please save us....
Review: Okay, I've got it.... Chelsea Clinton and her Rodham cousins can be sent to dispatch Osama bin Laden with a poisoned pen. While deep undercover (unless the National Enquirer decides to tag along), they fly first class, drive a porsche, book an overnight stay in the cave next to Osama, have some drinks each night, discuss their mission openly, but still mange to maintain their anonymity and kill their target. But, when done they can say the immortal words of Tom Clancy, "Been there, done that and got the t-shirt." This book was ridiculous.

Rating:
Summary: not his best, but......
Review: while there are some annoying problems with the characters (ie. being the son of a president, why isn't jack jr. followed everywhere by the papparazzi?), the book is still somewhat entertaining. the scenario he describes is largely believable, and timely. the pace of the story is reasonable, except for the usual plodding in the middle. and while not as good as his earlier novels, it's definitely a step up from "Red Rabbit". it'll probably be a good movie some day...

Rating:
Summary: Awful dialogue!
Review: I would have never believed this was a Tom Clancy book - sure he didn't use a ghost writer? The characters were shallow, the dialogue innane and the premise ridiculous! The twins called each other 'bro' more times than can be counted -- not what you'd expect from educated, sophisticated adults. And sending a junior analyst (the former President's son no less) into a danger zone with virtually no preparation, was not even close to believable. These characters have a long way to go to sell more books in this series!

Rating:
Summary: Better Effort This Time
Review: This books marks a return to form of sorts for Mr. Clancy. While not as long as say, Without Remorse or Rainbow Six, it is nonetheless one of Mr. Clancy's better efforts. We all knew that Jack Ryan senior was starting to get long in the tooth. After all, once you've become President and saved the free world close to a dozen times, what else is there to do but retire? Besides, it would be a little hard to go back into espionage when you still have a permanent Secret Service detail following you.

So, Mr. Clancy gets around this little quirk by bringing in the next generation of Ryan, Jack Jr. and his cousins, Dominic and Brian Caruso. The plot has already been established in other on-line reviews and the Amazon review, so I am not going to rehash it. Suffice it to say, it's typical Clancy.
While, as one reviewer noted, that Jack Jr. should have been recognized, it could be explained that Junior is now older than when his dad was in office, and he "grew up" and his features changed subtly. Now, where is his Secret Service detail? :) All in all, a very enjoyable, well-paced novel, much more enjoyable than Red Rabbit. How much more enjoyable? Let me put it this way. I finished The Teeth of the Tiger in a day and a half. It's been a year and a half, and I am still a quater of the way through Red Rabbit.

Rating:
Summary: Tom Clancy develops a sense of humor. . .
Review: And a rather dry one too! No doubt with an eye on the movie business, Mr. Clancy has delivered a homage to Ian Fleming.

This book introduces us to the younger generation in the Clancy family. Our Hero's son Jack Jr and his nephews the Caruso twins. They seem to be cut from a different bolt of cloth, Bond Street or Milan I imagine. Jack Jr has taken his elite education and his inherited financial and intelligence abilities and attached himself to a private-contractor version of the CIA and NSA secretly chartered by his father (hey, it's the age of contracting out isn't it?). His cousins are recruited from the FBI and the Marine Corp to be trained as assasains. The operations are funded by the ultimate in inside trading--wiretapping the NSA and the CIA. They are very discrete.

So get this the Caruso twins jet across the Atlantic (First Class) stay in the best hotels, drive hot wheels (Porsches, Mercedes and Hummers) and off bad guys. But first they go shopping for suits and shoes.

And did I mention that the villian of the piece is a Muslim who has a drinking problem?

So, what we have here are Trust Fund babies, supported by smart captialism as Heroes in the Secular West's fight against Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism!

It is all too, too droll, and a wicked way of giving the finger to criticism of the Decadent West.

Hollywood is going to love this!

Rating:
Summary: Not among Clancy's best, not even close.
Review: I've been a huge Tom Clancy fan for many years, ever since I read "Patriot Games" as a wee youth.

I don't know if it's the onset of my own maturity or if the author has been losing his touch. With all due respect, where do you go when your main character has been a super-spy,CIA deputy Director, Vice President, then President, and now retired President?

A rhetorical question perhaps, but let me list the things that have happened in the "Clancy mythology" that as of late have contributing to my enjoyment wearing thin:

1. I thought it was ridiculous that any President would ever appoint some CIA wonk as a vice President.

now to the currently reviewed novel:

2. The president "retired" in office? Hunhh? With Jack Ryan's love of history and his country that he had displayed in previous novels, this makes little sense to me. Being President is your big chance to shape the agenda and direction of the country for decades to come. Jack Ryan didn't seem the type to me who would shirk the responsibility the American people placed on him. Clancy delivers this news with an offhand remark that seems to be an attempt to illustrate how Ryan was a maverick.

3. The former President's handsome young son can travel
throughout Europe at will without being mobbed by reporters/
admirers? I mean, really, if we wanted to, I bet we could
easily find out what Chelsea Clinton did this week just by
glancing at the fishwraps in the supermarket checkout line.

4. Reference # 3, above. He is supposed to be *undercover*
as a "handler" for a "secret agency". Did the the chiefs of the secret agency *really* think that one through?

5. That same genius agency also happens to recruit the former
president's nephews? Who both happen to be the "perfect
candidates" for the job? Who just happen to be at the
mall purchasing sneakers when a major terrorist incident
occurs? Is there no one else in the whole planet other than
a relative of Jack Ryan that could be good at this stuff?

6. The president's son, who has no spy training figures out
that a certain building in a certain place houses what he
*supposes* is a secretive organization? Then he goes and
gets himself an interview?

There is more, but I won't continue to bore you. I think Clancy need to take a step back. I can't see how he can continue this plotline (move, kill, move, kill, repeat) without tarnishing his legacy. His next novel should involve all three of these pests getting whacked at a convenience store robbery, and Rainbow Six hunting down and destroying the perpetrators.

All kidding aside, I hope he is using this novel as an introduction to the new characters (Harrison Ford passing the torch to Ben Affleck, if you will), and is able to get the "mythology" back on track with the kind of thrilling, tense character-driven storylines that were hallmarks of his earlier work.

Two stars because a Tom Clancy novel is still better than a lot of the junk out there.

Rating:
Summary: Shallow characters ruined it
Review: I was a huge fan of Tom Clancy years ago but he seems to keep getting worse... In Teeth of the Tiger, the character development is terrible and the non-technical dialog is painful to read.

While Clancy still is very good at the analysis and technical stuff, he can't seem to write an intriguing character anymore, they all just seem to come from a formula... I'm beginning to think that once he started working with ghost writers (with the Net-Force and Op-Center books which are awful) he tried to formalize his method and now he follows that formula for his own books.

If you haven't read much Clancy, start with his first book and work forward, stop when you start getting annoyed (which started at Debt of Honor for me).

Rating:
Summary: It's the best
Review: Starting out not wanting to read this book because on its length, it turned out to be the best book i have ever completed for a school related activity. After finishing this book i knew reading it was the best thing that i could of ever done and ever page was well worth it. This book is all about terriosts and how they can be stoped and how they could be prevented. This book continues the story of Clancys famous character name Jack Ryan. Over all i thought that this book was a great read and it was the best 400 pages that i have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: a huge improvement over "Red Rabbit"
Review: Tom Clancy's newest novel set in the Ryanverse (the Jack Ryan universe) is a departure from each of the preceding novels. The difference is that the focus is no longer on Jack Ryan or John Clark. When we last saw Jack Ryan in "The Bear and the Dragon", he was the President of the United States. Jack Ryan is no longer President, though it is not clear if he served out his term or if he resigned after the murder of his best friend, Vice President Robbie Jackson (I am assuming you have read the previous novels, if not, I apologize for that spoiler). John Clark is still the head of the Rainbow anti-terrorism group, which is as much as "The Teeth of the Tiger" tells us about Clark. Jack Ryan does not appear in this novel, but rather he is only referred to. The same goes for John Clark. The focus of this novel is on three men. Two men are brothers, Dominic and Brian Caruso, nephews of Jack Ryan. The other man is Jack Ryan, Jr, the son of the former president.

There is an organization known only as "The Campus". The Campus is a secret organization set up by former President Ryan with the purpose of countering terrorism. The Campus is authorized to take the initiative to act against terrorists without the oversight of Congress or the government. Officially, the Campus does not exist. There are covert CIA operations that are considered "black" operations that do not officially exist but still exist in the framework of the CIA. The Campus does not exist. There is no government funding or unofficial acceptance, and only a small handful of people outside The Campus know that it exists.

The Campus is recruiting new operatives. The Caruso twins are from the FBI and the Marines and are rising stars in their respective jobs. The Campus recruits them, and trains them, and though they still officially work for the FBI and the Marine Corps, they have a new role in defending America from its enemies. Jack Ryan, Jr has recruited himself when he figures out the Campus is something other than what it seems and he is hired as an analyst (similar to what Jack Ryan, Sr's role was for the CIA, only lower ranking).

While Clancy spends time establishing the Campus and our new protagonists, he also builds the actions of the potential terrorists, setting up their large scale attack (exactly what it is, I will not spoil). While Clancy tends to present things as a case of black and white, good guys and bad guys, he does a good job of establishing what is going to happen even as he uses an abundance of detail. As the time gets closer to the event, Clancy's writing seems to speed up with shorter sections in each chapter with snippets revealing events unfolding. The second half of the novel is the reaction to the event.

There is good, and there is bad in this novel. I felt that one particular section involved large scale coincidence, but other than that, I was okay with what all went down. Clancy builds us up, releases with some action (making this book so much more satisfying than "Red Rabbit"), and continues with the novel. I understand that Tom Clancy admitted in an interview that he was only going to write two more novels in the Ryanverse. "Red Rabbit" was the first (the interview was before the publication of "Red Rabbit"), and that would make "The Teeth of the Tiger" the last Ryanverse novel. The problem with that is that this book felt like a bit of setup for future novels featuring Jack Ryan, Jr, and the Caruso twins. There is also still room in the universe for another book, perhaps featuring Ding Chavez. The only problem with this is that "The Teeth of the Tiger" is presumably set either in the present day, or somewhat in the future. Clancy would have to slow down his pace of writing if he intends to keep novels in the present or just in the future, otherwise he will then enter into a speculative future if he continues the series with an aging Jack Ryan, Jr.

The bottom line is that I enjoyed this book much more than "Red Rabbit," and I appreciated that it was a slimmer volume (after the thousand page "Bear and the Dragon") for a change. There was less depth in this book, but it was an entertaining read and a nice return to quality for Tom Clancy. I can only hope that he continues with this series and finishes his return to form.

Rating:
Summary: clancy does it again
Review: I am a big fan of tom clancy. This book is as good as the rest of the series. I hardly could put the book down. A definite buy.