"Red Rabbit" Taken from the flap of the book: Long before he was President or head of the CIA, before he fought terrorist attacks on the Super Bowl or the White House, even before a submarine called Red October made its perilous way across the Atlantic, Jack Ryan was a historian, teacher and recent ex-marine temporarily living in England while researching, a book. A series of deadly encounters with an IRA splinter group had brought him to the attention of the CIA's Deputy Director, Vice Admiral James Greer - as well as his counterpart with the British SIS, Sir Basil Charleston - and when Greer asked him if he wanted to come aboard as a freelance analyst, Jack was quick to accept. The opportunity was irresistible, and he was sure he could fit it in with the rest of his work. And then Jack forgot all about the rest of his work, because one of his first assignments was to help debrief a high-level Soviet defector, and the defector told an amazing tale: top Soviet officials, including Yuri Andropov, were planning to assassinate the Pope, John Paul II. Could it be true? As the days and weeks go by, Ryan must battle, first to try to confirm the plot, and then to prevent it, but this is a brave new world, and nothing he has done up to now has prepared him for the lethal game of cat and mouse that is the Soviet Union versus the United States. In the end, it will be not just the Pope's life, but the stability of the Western world that is at stake ... and it may already be too late for a novice CIA analyst to do anything about it.
Born April 12, 1947 was an American novelist. He is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels have been bestsellers and more than 100 million copies of his books have been sold. His name was also used on screenplays written by ghostwriters, nonfiction books on military subjects occasionally with co-authors, and video games. He was a part-owner of his hometown Major League Baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles, and vice-chairman of their community activities and public affairs committees. Originally an insurance agent, his literary career began in 1984 when he sold his first military thriller novel The Hunt for Red October for $5,000 published by the small academic Naval Institute Press of Annapolis, Maryland. His works The Hunt for Red October (1984), Patriot Games (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1989), and The Sum of All Fears (1991) have been turned into commercially successful films. Tom Clancy's works also inspired games such as the Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, The Division, and Splinter Cell series. Since Clancy's death in 2013, the Jack Ryan series has been continued by his family estate through a series of authors. Clancy died of heart failure on October 1, 2013.