Patriot Games (A Jack Ryan Novel) Paperback – October 30, 2013

Awesome book loved the attention to detail. The book is a must read it is hard to it down. Awesome

The great thing about a book is it describes the inner workings of the brain! The insights, intuitive hunches and analytics used to solve critical threats! The movies can't illustrate the reasoning and detailed minutiae culled to act and react to provocation! These elements are deliciously (and sometimes boringly) provided to enrich the story and the readers understanding of the process! This is the magic of Tom Clancy!The plotline, (which occasionally slowed) carefully nurtured, then gradually accelerated through the "planning" details then raced to one of the most exciting showdown I've ever read! I was stunned, emotionally drained and awestruck by the explosive conclusion!

Not very professionally written. Proofreading would have helped. Clip in an automatic pistol? Really? It’s a magazine. Saw this mistake many times throughout the book. Clips were in M1 Garand and some mousers. But nevertheless it was a great storyline.

One of my favorite Tom Clancy novels. First time in hardcover.

Look. It's not perfect, but it communicates certain values that are on the decline—and are missed everywhere they're not. It's only very occasionally too sentimental, and some of the bad guys' (and flawed guys') racism is a little too convincing. But those things are a small price to pay for a look into the worldview this novel illuminates, and it's not like you'll ever want to stop reading (maybe near the VERY end when everything that's about to happen is too inevitable to need mention, but it goes so fast that it's, at worst, inoffensive). I've gathered that this book is set earliest in Ryan's career so I read it first among the Clancy books I mean to get to. Just remember, when you find yourself thinking of it as self-congratulatory, that it's not Clancy's own personal self he's so proud of: it's OURself. For all he knew, we were going to keep going in the direction we appeared to have been heading his entire lifetime. How was he to know? And who are we if we don't try to turn it back around?One further warning: the love scenes—way too wholesome. If you're aroused by one of them, you're a better man than I.

I knew the book was going to be good but I didn’t think it was going to be a Cliff Hanger all the way to the last 2-3 pages!!!!!!!!Wow!!!!!!! Tom Clancy could sure .” WRITE”!!!!!!!!!!Can’t wait for Book # 3!!!!Edwin Lloyd

It's interesting to revisit a key bestseller that you first read over 30 years ago. This is the first in the Tom Clancy's long-running series about Jack Ryan, which has even been continued after Clancy's recent death via the pen of Mark Greaney.Jack Ryan is visiting London on vacation with his eye surgeon wife Catherine and 4-year-old daughter Sally when they find themselves close to a terrorist attack by the Ulster Liberation Army on a Rolls Royce driving through St James Park. After the terrorists have blown up the front of the car with a grenade they start moving in firing machine guns, intent on capturing the people in the back of the car. In seconds, Ryan tackles one of the attackers and kills another but is seriously injured. He didn't realise until later that the occupants of the car are the Prince and Princess of Wales and their infant son.This fantasy opening makes Ryan and his family close friends to the Royal Family and the Queen gives him an honorary Knighthood for his bravery. While the captured Irish terrorist Sean Miller is given life imprisonment, with the help of the ULA he escapes when being moved to a high-security prison. Miller vows that he will eliminate Ryan and capture the Prince.The rest of the book details Ryan's determination to find Miller and defeat the ULA and to do this he reluctantly accepts an invitation to work at the CIA. Miller pops up again in the US, targeting Catherine and Jack. Later on, he continues his vendetta against Ryan and the Prince with a stunning bloody gunfight at the end.I enjoyed going back to the start of the Jack Ryan saga and to read Clancy when he was at the top of his form. Some aspects of the book are dated (for example, terrorism was considered to always have political motives) and technology is fairly primitive. My main reservation is that Clancy's writing style is pretty ponderous and detailed. In those days, we expected blockbuster novels to be 800 pages but now we would expect this kind of story to be a compelling 400-500 page-turner.My other reservation is Clancy's inclusion of real people in the plot in fictitious situations, especially the Royal Family. He also has poor understanding of Royal protocols - calling the Duke of Edinburgh "My Lord" and the Prince "Your Highness".Many of you will have seen the movie of the book starring Harrison Ford and Anne Archer. I suggest that you read the book because the finale when Ryan finally catches up with Miller is very different and shows Clancy's forethought in making Ryan the kind of character he becomes in later books.As pointed out by several reviewers the conversion to an e-book has not been done well with no breaks between different sections of the action making some parts difficult to follow.

I’ve read a lot of Tom Clancy’s books over the years. I’m now starting over with the first one and going all the way through the second one was awesome as usual sometimes pretty wordy and you get lost but Clancy rocks.