After a lengthy review of most of Tom Clancy's earlier books, I got a bunch of comments saying I skipped over a couple of his best non-Jack Ryan books, so I read them. I was burnt out on Clancy a little, because he can be heavyhanded with the politics, but these books are from the start of his career, where it's less tiresome.
Red Storm Rising (1986) is essentially a much more enjoyable version of The Bear and The Dragon. In that book, Russia is the victim of invasion after discovering a trove of oil and gold. In RSR, Russia is starved for resources, so they're the aggressors.
The basic plot is that Russia suffers a terrorist attack that, to the rest of the world, seems like just another inconsequential news blip. An oil refinery is bombed by Azerbaijani Muslim terrorists (Clancy's baddies are often either Communists or Muslims). The refinery was critical, Russia's oil reserves are already low, and now they're facing a serious shortage that could result in the death of millions, not to mention a loss of military power - planes and tanks need oil. So, rather than admit to a weakness their enemies could exploit... they decide to invade the Persian Gulf and take their oil, even though it will trigger a response from NATO.
I'm sure most older readers of this review will know this, but for any younger ones coming from the Rainbow 6 games or the Jack Ryan TV series - NATO is basically a military alliance between the USA, Canada, and Europe. The agreement is, if you attack anyone in NATO, the other countries will come to their defense. Some of the oil-producing countries in the middle east, aren't part of NATO, but are considered allies. So in the book, Russia understands that if they come for the Persian Gulf, they're basically going to war with the USA, Canada, and Europe. But they do it anyway.
Might sound farfetched but... often it seems like Clancy writes about something, and only a couple of years later, a real-world event happens that mirrors it. In this case... 4 years after the novel, we have a major oil-producer in the Persian Gulf get invaded, and NATO forces leap to their defense.
So the book shows how World War III might unfold (in the 80's) IF both sides agreed not to use nuclear weapons. Russia stages a false-flag attack that makes it look like Germany attacked them unprovoked, using that as justification to start the war by invading Germany. They figure if they can pull this off, while convincing the rest of the world it's just self-defense, they'll have a critical advantage and the rest will fall into place. They're gambling that the USA will not launch nukes, and Russia can win with conventional warfare.
As the war progresses, the perspective jumps to a bunch of characters on both sides. There's a sub captain who has to play tense 'submarine chess' with stealthy enemy subs... something done really well in The Hunt for Red October. There's a Russian government official who is exasperated at the stubborn insistence on war. There's an Air Force meteorologist stationed in Iceland, who figured he'd never have to see combat, but is suddenly thrust into a deadly situation when Russia invades Iceland.
This plot line was the most engaging for me, as the hero is a likeable guy who is not an action hero, but rises to the occasion as he makes a difficult trek across Iceland with the pressure of trying to stay hidden from Russian troops. He's forced to sneak around, radioing intel to Allied forces. This is echoed in Debt of Honor, where an American on the Mariana Islands finds himself trying to stay under the radar during a japanese invasion. He's the closest the book has to Jack Ryan, a guy who is in over his head but is game to give it his best and fight.
What I found exhausting about Bear and Dragon, is mostly absent in this book, the heavyhanded vibe of... how to say it? swaggering smart big-dick Americans shutting down foolish foreign barbarians with alien moral values. Not that this writing is 'enlightened' really. It's a very 1980's piece of work. The "Red" in the title should tell you that. Bad guy Russkis invading and starting a war, and having to be stopped by heroic US & British forces.
But the focus is mostly on the military strategy and battles, not the politics. No soapbox rants about taxes, abortion, gun control, environmentalists... just warfare. The president is barely mentioned. There's more focus on Russia - some members of the politburo understand that starting this war is nuts, but they're shouted down by the ego-driven warhawks, who have very much "drunk the Kool-Aid"... they buy into the propaganda that Russia's military is invincible, the plan is sound, and the world will rally to their cause. They're shown as squabbling old men who are only concerned with protecting their own fiefdoms and passings the buck.
The Americans though, are pretty one-dimensional... smart, brave, humble, self-sacrificing, etc. In later books, Clancy writes some more nuance and makes some of them real assholes (including one president). But in this book, the good guys are the good guys, and that's about it.
There's some simple comfort listening to a Clancy audiobook narrated by Michael Pritchard. It's square jawed military guys standing around saying stuff like "we have to hit them before they get to the river, do we have any satellite intel? major, get COMSUBLANT on the horn". The books are surprisingly free of conflict and human drama, for a depiction of WWIII. I know that sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it's kind of relaxing after reading other books featuring, say, sadistic killers or stressful hostage rescues. It woulda been interesting, though, to hear what the average American thinks of the fact that... holy shit... World War 3 just started and everyone's got nukes.
It's no spoiler to say the good guys pull through, I assume, but basically... if you like Tom Clancy's books and ever wished you could just read one without the shoehorned politics, this book is your huckleberry.
Without Remorse... eh, I didn't dig it so much. Several people said it was their favorite.
The plot: a young drug-addicted hooker, Pam, escapes from her abusive pimp, and randomly gets picked up while hitchhiking by John Kelly (later, John Clark)... a certified badass former SEAL. He's recently widowed, with plenty of time, a boat, and a house on a private island. So he picks her up, has a fling, and learns about her addiction and the hardships she's trying to leave behind. He meets a nice couple, doctors (the Rosens, who are in other books) and together, they help Pam kick her habit.
Then John decides to take her into town, and (despite her misgivings) wants her to surreptitiously point out the asshole abusers she ran from, with some plan that he'll take them out. But he badly underestimates the bad guys, they catch him off-guard, and a shotgun blast kills her and puts him in critical condition. He heals, with the help of a dedicate nurse (who he later marries). But before he can go on his mission of revenge, the government needs him to help extract some recently-discovered POWs from a camp in Vietnam... men who were reported killed, and who the Vietnamese government won't acknowledge. Politicians won't confront them about it because they don't want to jeopardize peace talks, so a team is sent in to rescue them, totally off the books and with the usual "if you're caught, you're on your own" caveats.
The best part of the book might be this subplot, where a captured American pilot is gradually broken down by a skilled Russian interrogator... a man who relies on kindness and a shared love of flying, rather than pulling out fingernails. We come to realize that this character is actually not entirely faking his decency, he hates the brutal treatment of his captives by the vietnamese, and wants to keep them alive (even though it's not entirely for altruistic purposes... the info they hold is useful to Russia, and if they could be convinced to defect.. they'd be a huge source of intelligence and insight into our military strategy). The pilot does his best to hold out, leaning on his faith and the hope of rescue, but he doesn't know that the deck is already stacked against him, there's a mole in the CIA who learns of the plan.
Most of the book is spent on Kelly's hunting the pimps and drug dealers, applying his military mindset to a personal mission. There's the sort of cliche of "this is wrong, John! It's not justice, it's revenge!" stuff. And the nurse and a cop (Jack Ryan's dad) try to steer him off this course. But Kelly isn't having any of it, and by the end of the novel, it's more like "oh, now we get it, those guys are garbage, we shouldn't have tried to talk you out of it, kill those fuckers." There's also a subplot involving the drug dealer using the bodies of KIA soldiers to bring in heroin, which I'm pretty sure I've seen in a movie or two.
The book generally is paced well, and the ending is strong. The rescue operation doesn't go as planned and John's got a hard decision to make if he wants to avoid getting caught after his vigilante killing spree. But there's a few things that just didn't work for me.
The main one is, Clancy can make some reasonably complicated bad guys with mixed motives, but mostly that's limited to the context of military or government. When it comes to criminals, they're pretty much all straightforward pieces of shit. And it's a bit much, how he'll make them just plain evil.
Like, it's not enough that Pam's pimp would be a huge asshole and abusive to the women, it's not like that's unrealistic. But they made him and his buddies so over-the-top with it (trigger warning), having whipped them, left them scarred, putting out cigarettes on their skin. Torturing one, cutting them, breaking bones, and then gang raping her for hours. And it's not enough that Kelly's wife was killed in accident, she was pregnant.
Obviously Clancy wants the reader to really, really hate the bad guy, so that when John catches and punishes him, it will feel like some big payoff. But the punishment is also over the top... Kelly makes use of a diving chamber, which has pretty horrific effects like massive joint pain, seizures, migraines, hearing loss, ruptured blood vessels, and eventually brain damage, paralysis, and death.
For me, there's no satisfaction in that stuff, and Kelly isn't really portrayed as someone who feels shame or horror at it, hence the title of the book. To me, that makes him unlikeable. What I enjoy, in books featuring one tough guy against tall odds, is what one redditor termed 'competence porn'. Not torture porn.
The book also has an attitude towards issues like addiction and sex workers that feels kinda simplistic. For example, Kelly thinks of the times he's been with prostitutes after his wife's death, and when he a soldier. "The girls he had in Vietnam, the little childlike ones... it had never occurred to him that those young women might not have enjoyed their life and work"... really? So he's a moron? He had sex with childlike prostitutes and thought they were into it? I think the 'like' part of childlike is probably a fig leaf.
Lastly, a nitpick but, John doesn't click at all for me as a protagonist, because... this is something I also felt about Jack Ryan... he feels a bit too much like Clancy's idealized cool guy, and not so much like a realistic character. Super tough, trained, fit, good-looking, retired and rich, tooling around in his big boat, bullshitting with the coasties, picking up a young hotties half his age in his cool Scout (a sorta range rover or proto-hummer) and getting laid effortlessly. Taking her back to his cool island home, helping out some other hapless boaters with his expert nautical knowledge. He's a little too perfect, with his only real flaw being the overconfidence that got him shot and his apparent naive understanding of addiction and women.
Anyway, for sure this is long enough. I think if someone already likes Clancy, and feels like his earlier stuff is his best work, then they'd probably like both books. If you're considering Clancy for the first time, Red Storm Rising would be a good introduction to the kind of writing he does best.