Debt of Honor
Debt of Honor: Called out of retirement to serve as National Security Advisor to the president, Jack Ryan, with the help of CIA officers John Clark and Domingo Chavez, must prepare the untested president to meet the challenges of a new world order. - Thrillers reviews: I've skipped around the Jack Ryan series of Clancy books -- skipping one or two, reading them out of order, etc. Debt of Honor was typical Clancy -- very heavy on the logistics and technical details of modern political and military conflict, light on character development. I guess there may be men like "Saint Jack" Ryan in political life, but sometimes you just want him to kick his dog or cuss someone out. Some may enjoy the financial details of this book, but I found myself skipping through large chunks of this one. The build up to the military conflict -- the real meat and gift of Clancy's writing -- seemed interminable. I just kept waiting for *something* to *happen.* I'll probably read Executive Decision just to find out what crisis Jack lands in as president of the US of A, but in the meantime, I hope Clancy comes out with another entry to the Op Center series of books Among other reasons, one thing that makes Tom Clancy stand out from most other authors is his ability to innovate. Plotlines that have rarely been explored before but are not only plausible but realistic. Due to mistreatment of the gas tanks in a popular Japanese car, a major safety defect causes a normal traffic accident to end the life of several Americans including one entire family. This starts a chain reaction that ultimately ends trade between the United States and Japan. The damage done to Japan's economy allows one businessman, Raizo Yamata to organize an attack on the United States' military and economy sparking an eventual war. In the middle of this mess, as you would have guessed, is the new National Security Advisor Jack Ryan.The action doesn't really get kickstarted until the fourth or fifth chapter and some of the middle chapters are chocked full of fluff. While this book could have probably been written in about 650 pages (rather than 990), the plot rings true and the cliffhanger ending will amaze you. Especially now..and remember that this book was written in 1997..pre-9/11. This book is very much worth your time, but only if you plan on reading the follow-up, Executive Orders, as soon as you finish the last page of Debt Of Honor. Buy them both at the same time because you will NOT want to wait! But still a great read. The book goes around a Japanese businessman with a lot of power and money. Now Jack comes back into the picture, two years off of retirement and now he is asked by President Durling to come back as his National Secutiry Advisor, Jack takes the offer and goes ahead with the plan. In Japan, businessmen who hate America for what it has done to their country rages them, and when a accident killing an American family thanks to their tires gives them more patrotic duty to their country, and the U.S. bans all of the tires made in Japan, so with this the businessmen decide to bring back imperilism by kidnapping the Prime Minister, and by ordering the invasion of American terrority in the Pacific gain by the U.S. in WW2. Now the U.S. is locked in a word battle with Japan with American citizens on these islands, they fear that they are in danger, and so comes in John and Ding Chavez, and they head to Japan and they attempt to rescue Koga from the men. So while the battle with Japan begins, Koga is rescued and he calls off the fighting with the U.S. Now as things start to cool down, back home Vice President Ed Kealthy is resigning the Vice Presidency because of a sex scandal some years ago, and President Durling ask Jack to hold the seat of Vice President for only a year until President Durling's term is up, Jack takes the offer since him and Jack are good friends dating back to the secret operations in Columbia to fight the drug lords for killing three American operatives. Back in Japan, Admiral Sato then flies a plane to America, while taking a break, he then stabs his co-pilot saying 'sorry my friend.' after stabbing him. No passengers are on board, and back in Washington Jack is beginning to be sworn in as Vice President with the Supreme Court, Congress is full, and everyone in the political game is there to see Jack take the oath. Now as Jack is sworn in, President Durling is talking to Congress while Sato dives a plane into the chambers of Congress. Killing all of Congress, the Supreme Court judges, the President and the first lady along with his secret service agents assigned to President Durling. Now through the wreckage, while being Vice President for only a couple of minutes, Jack is now President Of The United States of America, and he has a huge disaster on his hands with most of Congress dead, the Supreme Court dead, and the President dead leaving Jack Patrick Ryan the most powerful man in the world. This is definitely a GOOD book to read if you are a Clancy fan like myself. The book does talk a lot about the world financial market a lot, but hey this is Tom Clancy we are talking about, he has to know what he is talking about, and he is good at it. What made me think twice about this ending, the plane crashing into a building especially like the WTC, did Usama Bin Laden read Debt Of Honor, and got the idea of crashing a plane into a building like 9/11 and in Debt Of Honor? We dont know, but a damn good ending, and kind of sad when you think about it. Great book, not just about the plane crashing, the whole story altogether.
