Tom Clancy Commander-in-Chief

Long-time fans of Tom Clancy will, by now, have a good idea of what to expect with this Jack Ryan doorstopper. The Russian president, Valeri Volodin, is concocting a get rich quick scheme that will put the world on notice as he covertly manipulates the globe's oil supply and prices. Naturally Ryan, former CIA analyst turned President of the United States, knows what's up and attempts to use his powers as leader of the free world to stop the former Soviet KGB agent from upending the whole planet. Mark Greaney takes this plot and complicates it six ways to Sunday with a dozen subplots and twice as many characters, setting the men of The Campus (and, sadly, it is largely still a boy's club with nary a strong woman in sight...) toward their targets all around the world and hitting a broad macro view of what a modern war with Russia would look like. There's secret agents, assassin siblings, money laundering, kidnapping, diplomacy and, when that fails, warfare by land, sea, and air.The strange part is, for all that appears to be going on, this book often feels like nothing is happening for long stretches. Commander-in-Chief is a slog to read. Although I continue to be an advocate for Greaney's work in this particular franchise, this entry is the weakest of the bunch. So much of the page count is spent building toward the inevitable war everybody knows is coming, but by the time the war actually rolls around in the book's climax it's nothing terribly grand. A fair amount of hay is made over an advanced Russian sub armed with nukes staking out the American coastline, only to disappear from both US tracking satellite's and the novel's narrative. The kidnapping subplot drags on for longer than it should, and then gets resolved in a single page. Despite some solid action scenes and accounts of thrilling military heroics, the various subplots lose their steam fast and fizzle out in a number of unsatisfying ways.I am still curious to see where these characters are heading, particularly John Clark, knowing that Greaney's tenure with the Tom Clancy brand has since passed (I'm a few years late and a handful of books behind with the Jack Ryan Universe). Clark, now pushing 70, is clearly ready for retirement if this book is any indication. One thing that made me smile, though, was Clark, during a morning shooting range training, thinking about how reasonable people can cope with disagreement. I couldn't help but think of Mitch Rapp, the assassin hero of Vince Flynn's series, who damn near has an apoplectic fit anytime somebody disagrees with him and threatens to murder everyone for not drinking his Kool-Aid. I like the Rapp series, mind you, but it's nice to see trained killers like Clark actually behaving and thinking like professional adults rather than bratty children with guns. It's this kind of characterization of our nation's government workers and servicemen that has always put Clancy at the forefront, in my mind.

The plot in this Mark Greaney written Jack Ryan novel is too predictable, too basic and too orientated around the Russian satellite states. Realistically no one follows these states so to portray them as an integral part of a novel is boring and uninteresting. So too is the familiar over detail of various weapon systems and weapons. The average reader is not interested in such minute detail. Sort the plot out in a realistic territory and the readership will be happy. Stay with this formula and you will lose the readership. The jury is now out on whether this character, born out of the great Tom Clancy novels that developed his father Jack Ryan senior, will stand the test. I am unconvinced.

In Commander in Chief, Greaney reruns the bad Russian scenario.  If you remove the Russian President from the equation, most of the concerns and issues from the Russian side have been played over and over in various fictions.  While the issues are valid, how they are dealt with is what makes the story.  As usual NATO is depicted as an ineffectual, deliberative organization, where Nation States put their concerns ahead of NATO.  Article 5 well defined, and the arguments put forward by the dissenting nations to take action pre Article 5 are cogent but stereotypical.  As usual the action in the book is well played out, not always the way you or your best General/Admiral next door would execute it, but still plausible.  This could have been a decent scenario for a war game at any of the war colleges or staff colleges, who knows.  It would be nice to see someone other than Russia and China as the main antagonist; which is difficult since they, in theory, are the only world powers that are equals and anyone else might ruffle feathers. (I.e., another resurgent Nationalistic European power?)

The charm of the Clancy novels the Tom Clancy actually penned comes in two parts. First of all he invented the techno thriller, that is thrillers stuffed with the latest high tech spy and military stuff. We liked that a lot. He also created enduring characters that we still love. His characters had a depth and solidity that the reader could understand and bond with. This novel penned by Mark Greaney hits nether mark. He uses the third person to tell the action rather than to show the action through the actions of the characters. And the high tech stuff is almost totally absent. Bummer for fans. On the other hand it is a readable and enjoyable thriller. Each of the three plot threads could easily have made a full length book on their own merits. One segment involves complicated illicit money moving, fascinating all by itself. The other threads deal with Jack Ryan Jr. and his lady friend while the third area of interest has strong and well developed military action. I bought this book, enjoyed it and do not regret spending the money. But it does not compare to Tom's work.

Once again, Mark Greaney covers the name of Tom Clancy, and nice to see Mr Greaney’s name given prominence on the cover.You often see thrillers with “ripped from today’s headlines” as an inaccurate cover blurb, but they could have used it for this one very easily. So close to what is currently going on with Russia it is scary at times.The Russian President has a country suffering from lowering oil revenues and financial sanctions. In a bit to consolidate his political position and his country’s fortunes, he looks to further expansion into his neighbours. He relies on indecision from NATO and misdirection to hide his intent. On the ground, members of the secret Campus organisation are starting to pull the threads together, and in the US, President Jack Ryan leads a diplomatic front while knowing he may need to commit US Forces against a much larger invading force.This felt very “Clancy” with a blend of high level politics and leadership with the intelligence teams and troops on the ground. The way the little picture build up into the big one with the switching perspectives. Mark Greaney gets it right on all fronts and writes a book that Clancy would have been pleased to have called his own. I hope the Clancy estate and publishers continue with Mr Greaney for some while yet.

When I first started the Jack Ryan Jr series, I thought it was going to be a pale, watered-down version of the original Tom Clancy novels.OK, Mark Greaney doesn't have the heavy-weight political and military scenes in Tom Clancy's books, but you know what? I used to skip the bullet-by-bullet battle sequences and convoluted political scenarios in Tom's books because they just went on-and-on and I got lost or fell asleep because I'm not a military history nut. Sometimes they were so complicated I suspected some poor researcher had copied-and-pasted them from wikipedia.So, OK, Mark Greaney is Tom Clancy-lite, but that's not a bad thing. I find all of Mark's Jack Ryan Jr books more readable than verbose Clancy, the action sequences have the ring of authenticity about them, and he still does that Tom Clancy thing of loading the book with background detail when necessary.What I like most about the Jack Ryan Jr series is that the characters evolve. Mark Greaney isn't afraid of killing off popular characters, or putting them through emotional wringers. We see Dom Crusoe change from a hesitant rookie into a dedicated killer after the death of his brother. We see Jack Ryan Jr struggle with the dilemma of being the President's son and a rich, young, single man, and how he matures throughout the series. There are nice insights into the personal life of the President and his family, and JR Jr's own love life. [Mark Greaney, if you are reading this, please please don't kill off John Clark just yet!]OK, there is still a tendency for the US to win the day, against all odds. And it's amazing how just a few operatives in the Campus can take down 20 Spetsnaz. But that's fine. I read Tom Clancy/Mark Greaney to be entertained and uplifted and do fist-pumps in the air. If I want grim and grey I would read Le Carre or Forsythe.So yeah ... if you like Tom Clancy, this collaboration with Mark Greany hits the right spot.

This was a superb book, so very believeable and I kept changing the Russian's name to "Putin". It was so good I actually did nothing for almost the whole of 2 days (I am retired) as I really wanted to finish it. Come on Tom Clancy get your pen and paper out I just love your books and I "think" I have read them all. Thank you so very much

I'm a fan of Tom Clancy. The problem is that the publisher doesn't want to let the name go so conscripts other writers to continue the theme using the same characters and that is ok in theory and most do a reasonable job. As for Commander in Chief in particular, it moves along quite nicely and is worth reading. My only criticism is that the story ends too abruptly, as if the author reached the required word count and then cut off what could have been a far better climax.

In the beginning it was quite hard going getting into the storyline as the story flipped from one thing to another but about a third of the way through once the foundation was laid then the book became very interesting and I read a lot of it in a small space of time a good read and I look forward to the next Tom Clancy book