Dead Or Alive by Tom Clancy and Grant Blackwood – Sept 2011

Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy and Grant Blackwood  ★★★★★

I haven’t enjoyed a Tom Clancy book since Executive Orders. It seems over the later few years, Clancy has paid more attention to form than substance. Wordy descriptions, throw-away characters and slow-moving plots have become the new standard. It is almost as if there is a word length requirement, but a miserly hoarding of story telling, as if he is always saving something for the next book. He doesn’t lay it all on the line like he used to.

A few years ago, Clancy tried to move on from Jack Ryan, leaving him in the Oval Office and putting the next generation of characters in the limelight. For me, it never worked. The new characters lacked depth and realism. And they swear all the time, a downer for me. I never came to like any of them, much less love, like I did Jack Ryan. The descriptions I once enjoyed became tedious. The plots moved so slowly, I had no trouble putting the book down and going to sleep. No more all night sessions. I will still pull all nighters with the old books.

In Dead or Alive, Clancy tries to draw the old readers back in by having the old standbys, Jack Ryan, John Clark and Ding Chavez, come back for cameo appearances. He gives them things to do, but most of the time they are standing back, watching the young kids run the show. It all seems contrived, right down to Clark and Chavez being pulled off their flight home just to retirement to watch another Rainbow Six raid. They left their wives on the plane in London to go watch a bunch of guys take down a bunch of bad guys in Libya. Just watch, mind you. They weren’t needed for the planning or set up. It was as if the raid couldn’t be included in the storyline unless they were there to watch it, like the new commanders needed permission or a good luck charm. Their wives should have left them in disgust.

Not much else is better in this book. I enjoyed the little bits of Jack Ryan trying to decide whether to run for the presidency again. I think one of the hardest jobs to retire from must be President of the United States. One day you are the inner circle and the next you only get to read about it in the papers. It must be very hard to quietly leave the stage to someone you feel is incompetent. The writing of the Jack Ryan subplot displays this clearly. The rest? Cheesy as Wisconsin in the fall.

I hadn’t planned on even reading this Clancy book. I only did because my son bought it and it was sitting on my Kindle. Turns out he didn’t even finish it. I should have followed his lead. Seems he knows something Clancy and I don’t – when to stop.