- Book: Tom Clancy’s Commander In Chief
- Author: Mark Greaney
- Reviewed by: Samantha Keogh
- Review made possible by: Penguin Random House
We are used to fast moving and expertly-crafted yarns from Tom Clancy, so we are not surprised by Mark Greaney’s consummate skill in keeping multiple plot balls in the air while expanding the legend of President Jack Ryan, a man we automatically associate with Clancy.
Clancy would not permit a flirtation with one of his characters without assurances that the liaison was honourable.
No shilly-shallying here.
The story proceeds at a cracking pace.
Interest remains riveted throughout and while you expect the guys in the white hats to prevail in the end, for once you are never quite sure if the villain might actually triumph.
The scoundrel here is Russian president Valeri Volodin, who is less comfortable in his country’s oligarchy than he would like to be and who can see that actions he is about to take will make him even less popular – perhaps even terminally so.
Just on the off chance he is forced to scarper, he engages unknown financial genius Andrei Liminov to move his money to somewhere where only he, Volodin, can lay hands on it.
And he sends a former KGB thug to keep Liminov’s hands out of the cookie jar.
The trouble starts when a floating natural gas facility in Lithuania suddenly explodes.
Also, a Venezuelan prosecutor is assassinated.
Then a Russian troop train traveling along a diplomatic corridor in Lithuania between the Russian homeland that its exclave, Kalinin, is fired upon – ostensibly by a Polish splinter group – and several soldiers are killed.
President Ryan reads a link into these seemingly disparate events and is sent jostling for assistance when tanks and 5 000 Russian troops are moved to the Belorussian-Lithuanian border.
Fearing an invasion, Ryan tries to rally NATO countries to invoke Article 5 of the NATO agreement, which calls for all members to react if any member is attacked.
NATO decisions require complete consensus.
Some countries can’t believe Volodin would be stupid enough to start a war.
Some are not prepared to commit troops to defend a minor Baltic nation.
Some just don’t like America and/or Ryan.
There is no consensus and it is left to Ryan to scramble the American military to readiness for when the invasion does happen.
And it does!
In the background a host of sub-plots will kidnap your attention and hold it to ransom.
In short, this is a story built capably on strong foundations and it’s well worth reading.
