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Clear and Present Danger

Clear and Present Danger

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A very entertaining story
Review: Clear and Present Danger is another fast paced Clancy thriller. Although I didn't feel it was as good as some of his others, it wasn't far behind. What I really liked about this book was the introduction to Domingo Chavez's character as a seargent in the U.S. Army. Also, in this book the reader sees the first meetings John Clark has with Jack Ryan and Domingo Chavez and it's interesting to watch these first interactions take place. Although this is a Jack Ryan novel it takes quite a while for his character to appear and even longer for him to start becoming important to the story, but the story is interesting even before this takes place. Like many people, I really like the character of Jack Ryan. I think his character is so appealing because he's an honest guy just trying to do the right thing in a world full of dishonest people with their own hidden agendas. This story just adds to that appealing image. I think what helps make Clancy's stories so good is the fact that there isn't always a clear line between right and wrong and you see the "good guys" sometimes make decisions that aren't completely noble. This isn't so much characteristic of Jack Ryan, but more so of John Clark and Domingo Chavez in this novel and in others. Because of this the reader is forced to weigh the clearly good actions of characters with their less than admirable actions and make their own judgments about each character. In Clear and Present Danger a covert military operation goes underway to considerably hamper the activities of the drug cartel in Colombia, but it's legality is called into question.(This mission is set in motion before the murder of important U.S. diplomats though the description on the back of the novel misleads readers into thinking this mission is a result of those deaths). As this covert mission takes place characters are forced to weigh the law with justice as the two aren't always one and the same and this is what makes the novel so interesting. In the end, Clear and Present Danger is a very interesting novel worth reading for the interesting plot and if you're a fan of Ryan, Clark, Chavez or all of the above. It's definitely worth reading for any true Clancy fan.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The U.S. gets serious in the "war on drugs"
Review: The Coast Guard intercepts a luxury yacht where a brutal murder of 4 U.S. citizens has occurred. The two Columbians aboard are coerced into confessing to the murder, and the gov't ends up with critical information regarding the drug trade. With this information and the decision from the President that illegal drugs represent a "clear and present danger" several operations are launched to hit the Columbian cartel where it hurts. Between financial seizures in the hundreds of millions and surgical strikes on supply lines, the action stays fast-paced and interesting.

While not my favorite Clancy book, it was nevertheless fun to read right down to the intense end. Also, the progression of Jack Ryan's career with the CIA and the addition of John Clark (a minor charcter in "Cardinal of the Kremlin"), adds to the human element of the story. The action is great, and although the language is at times pretty coarse, I enjoyed reading it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Clancy Always Asks ... What If?
Review: What if... the President decided to get serious about the war on drugs? What if he used the military as not only to stop the transport, but also stop the manufacture of drugs?

In this tale, three soldiers do battle. Mr. Clark is the CIA operative who provides intelligence for the military action. Domingo Chavez is a warrior; an infantryman sent under orders to do battle - and ultimately abandoned. Jack Ryan is the new CIA deputy director who figures it all out - and won't abandon faithful soldiers even if it means his life.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another great read by Tom Clancy
Review: First of all, let me admit that I'm a big Tom Clancy fan. Although I approached the book with that bias I found it a thoroughly enjoyable read. In Clear and Present Danger Clancy tackles the hot subject of America's war on illegal drugs. His solution is one that I think most readers will, at least secretly, harbor some admiration for. The U.S. undertakes a covert war on the Columbian drug lords. As usual in Clancy's novels there's lots of action on many fronts. And as usual the CIA's Jack Ryan is right in the middle of it. The book moved a little quickly at the end for my tastes (I thought the resolution of such a complex plot deserved a little more time than Clancy gave it), otherwise I might have given it 5 stars. If you're a Clancy fan you'll love this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of Clancy's best
Review: I'm a huge Tom Clancy fan, so I won't mind if you think this review is a little biased. I do want to mention, however, that, having read all of his works of fiction, that Clear and Present Danger is one of my favorites. There's lots of action, intrigue, and plotlines in this one, just like his other fine books, but at 650 pages, he's put it all in a tighter package. (For the unintiated, Clancy books have been known to exceed 1000 pages.)

Two of my favorite characters, John Clark and Ding Chavez, get a good amount of airplay (readplay?) here. Other books with the characters, including Without Remorse and Rainbow Six, were lackluster, but they really shine here. One can't help but feel a sense of loyalty between these two after reading their stories here.

This was the first Clancy book I re-read...it's really that good!

(I could also add at this point how the movie didn't do justice to the book....but you knew that already, didn't you?)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Some problems...but good overall
Review: Clear And Present Danger starts out with the Coast Guard finding three top American officials killed on their yacht, and the men charged with the murder are from the Cali Drug Cartel in Columbia, so to get back at the Cali Cartel, the President then prepares a secret covert operation of selected Special Forces to bring back justice to the Cartel. Jack Ryan comes back into the picture, with Admiral James Greener dying of cancer, and now he is left in charge as DDI of the CIA, but Jack does not know about the covert operation in Columbia, since they dont want Jack to intervere in the operations. So comes in Domingo Chavez, a East L.A. Chicano who turn his life around by joining the U.S. Army and becoming a Ranger, and now he is the selected person to go to Columbia to fight the drug lords.
Now as they get ready to train for the operation, Jack has NO IDEA what is going on, but he knows that something is not right, and they are keeping quiet about the operation. As they arrive to Columbia, John Clark is running the operation and in charge of the whole thing. Jack and John Clark know each other from rescusing CARDINAL (a U.S. spy in the Kremlin) and bringing him to America where he lives in exile.
Now one of the Cali Cartel's men brings in a woman who works for the CIA and has top secret information about the operation, and finds out that one of the top men who is running the operation is going to Columbia, so his men sets up a ambush and attacks their convoy. Now, the operation gets more intense where they bomb the drug lord's house, and it makes it look like a car bomb. Now, as the Cali Drug Cartel finds out what is going on, they now are hunting them in the thick forests of Columbia thanks to the Columbian military which he has complete control of thanks to money. Jack Ryan then finds out what is going on, and now the covert operation is dead, and they are leaving the men in Columbia on their own. Jack then goes down to Columbia to rescue the men from the hidden dangers the Cali drug cartel has to offer. Now Jack rescues the men, and the President lost the election, and now President Fowler is in office, so now Jack has a new boss, along with a new enemy: Elizabeth Elliot; the National Security Advisor who hates Jack with a passion.

The book starts out slow, but it is still worth a good read to get into.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Boring and Trite
Review: I believe most of Clancy's works are unoriginal and somewhat boring, but Clear and Present Danger was personally offensive to me as a woman. The only female character is protrayed as unintelligent and permiscuous. She was the one who gave away the top secret plans, and went about it in a very tacky way: during an afair with someone who used her for her information. This was rather hard for me to look past. Plus i did not enjoy Clancy's monotonous rambling anout insignificant items such as how powerful a rifle is, or how large a ship is. To me it was simply uninteresting, and I usually enjoy descripvtive novels.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Few Problems but Good Over All
Review: This book has its problems, but over all, it's pretty good. I really like Tom Clancy's style of writing; he never goes more than a page or two without spicing it up with dialogue. The story was a kind of slow to get going, although some of that is excusable by the size of the book (half of Clear and Present Danger is a lot more pages than half of your average novel). I like the large number of sub-plots, and during the last hundred pages I could barely put it down. Actually, I finished the book in less than a week.

The main problems I have with this book are the cursing (Tom Clancy really went overboard), and the overuse of the word "bastard". I know it seems strange, but it really distracted me from the story to have people from all over the world using this single word to denote someone who is disliked.

A word of warning - this is a LONG book. A total of 656 pages, it is not a short read.

Like I said above, this is a good book. I have read a number of classics ranging from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to King Rat by James Clavell, but Tom Clancy is my personal favorite. Be sure to read this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Marvelous!
Review: This was my first Tom Clancy and still is my absolute Favorite!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Present Danger" Clearly a Clancy Classic
Review: The fourth installment of the Jack Ryan series (its plot overly simplified in the 1994 movie) moves its stalwart protagonist, CIA analyst Jack Ryan, into new and more dangerous territory as he rises up the chain of the Agency's command structure.

It's also a new challenge for Clancy as his novels shift their focus from U.S.-Soviet confrontation and international terrorism to the more shadowy worlds of drug smuggling and the nature of covert operations. It also explores such notions as the rule of law, the proper application of military force, the niceties of international law, and the need for good men to stand up for their beliefs, even if it means standing up to the President of the United States.

Clear and Present Danger is a very complex work. It starts with the interception of a drug-carrying yacht whose rightful owners have been murdered viciously by two Colombian "sicarios" employed by the Medellin Cartel. From this seemingly routine event, a chain of escalating events culminating with the Cartel's bold attack on three American envoys in Bogota (Colombia's capital)leads to a Presidential decision that will have dire consequences both at home and abroad.

Here, too, Jack Ryan must face the pitfalls of his ascent up the ladder at Langley. His mentor and surrogate father, Admiral James Greer, is suffering from cancer and Ryan must step into his post, not knowing that the President's new and shifty National Security Adviser, Adm. James Cutter, has dragooned the Directorate of Operations and CIA Director Arthur "Judge" Moore into carrying out a covert and illegal scheme to combat the drug cartels using military assets and the talents of CIA paramilitary operative John Clark. By the conclusion of this novel, Ryan, too, will be caught in the tangled web of Cutter's scheme, and the repercussions of the "Colombian Affair" in both Ryan's professional and personal lives will linger on in later novels of this series.


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