Book Review: Tom Clancy’s Oath of Office

Clancy died in 2013, so now other authors write his novels, putting his name in the title and his hero Jack Ryan in the narrative.

They seem a long way from Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984). So long indeed that Ryan, a young naval officer in Red October, has since become the middle-aged President of the United States. How time gets away!

Happily, there is a Jack Ryan Junior, a very active C.I.A. field officer, so it is not all about men in suits pacing the Oval Office. Being president is not for the faint-hearted: there are serious natural disasters at home including a new 1919-type flu virus threatening to go pandemic; the US embassy in Cameroon is under siege; there is a mysterious but sinister crisis in Iran; large forces of the Russian Army are massing on the Ukrainian border; and somebody has cunningly nicked some Russian short-range nuclear missiles.

Thankfully President Ryan is not distracted by building a Great Wall. If you enjoy spooks, conspiracies, doomsday threats, read on!

Author: Marc Cameron
Publisher: Penguin