A bloody good read (Rainbow Six - Tom Clancy)

Member Name: dcoare

Product:	Rainbow Six - Tom Clancy
Date:	18/01/04 (77 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant storytelling, Compelling plot

Disadvantages: None

I have never read any of Tom Clancy’s books, and on first sight, this book looked a little daunting. This is a huge book (nearly 900 pages) and promised to be very accurate, which makes you believe that the author may go on about gun specs, etc that would probably send my head whirling. My dad gave me his copy to read, and told me that it was a brilliant book that I would really enjoy, but I was still fairly sceptical.

I decided as you do in these situations that I should give it a go, read a few pages and if it didn’t seem my cup of tea I could put it down and read something more of my ilk, like Stephen King.

But as I began to read, I realised that I was not going to be able to put this down.

Tom Clancy doesn’t over-indulge in his obvious knowledge of the covert world, and so you never feel that the things he says go over your head.

The action begins almost immediately, as a prelude to the characters you are about to get to know. As I was reading the first section of this book I couldn’t help but feel as though I were watching these events happen in a movie.

The book begins with a sequence on an aeroplane with a team of men heading across from USA to the UK. Unfortunately, some terrorist-y types have decided that this is the flight that they wish to hijack for their own causes. Unbeknown to them, a select few of the passengers are not your average civilian types. Clancy creates a tension as you begin to realise that this group are planning together on how to scupper the terrorist’s plans. The action descriptive really gives you a feel for the speed of thought and expertise these individuals all command as they quickly and safely bring the hijack attempt to a halt.

Once this sequence has ended, you get to know a little more about the team you just saw take out the terrorists. They are making their way to England to set up a unique operation for anti-terrorism, worldwide.

>Their task is made more difficult as, within weeks of their deployment, there are numerous terrorist events occurring. To each of these the team (Rainbow Six) are deployed and left to display their expertise in bringing the incidents to an end.

The best thing about this story is that Tom Clancy moves between two separate stories, which are both related. On the one hand, he tells you of the exploits of the Rainbow Six team, and on the other he follows a Russian, who is ex-KGB but is being asked to perform some strange chores. These chores directly affect the Rainbow Six team. There is an overall reason for these events happening when they do, but I would rather you read it yourself than I give the game away.

Clancy is a brilliant storyteller. He feeds you the information in little sections at just the right time so that you are completely intrigued into what will happen next.

He creates circumstances that are completely believable and possibly a little worrying. You begin to realise that the things that happen in this story, could also happen in real life if the right people wished it so.

I found this book to be a very compelling read that I rarely put down. I found that the author never went off on tangents and so the story flowed very nicely.

The price on the back of the book says £6.99, but I’m sure that it could be found for a lot less than that. (My dad got his copy from a 2nd hand bookshop for just 70p)

I would recommend this book to everyone. Don’t be put of by it’s size, once you start reading it you won’t want to put it down.

If anyone can recommend some of his other books I would be very interested, thank you.

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