Blunt teeth (The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy)

Member Name: gillyman

Product:	The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy
Date:	26/10/03 (254 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Takes a new direction

Disadvantages: Not a patch on the great Clancy novels; Clear and Present Danger, Sum of all Fears, Debt of Honour, Executive Orders

I got my first taste of Tom Clancy this time about 11 years ago when a friend shoved a copy of The Sum of all Fears in my direction. I hardly slept until I had got through all 900+ pages. I was clearly hooked and sought out all of his other novels. Those of you who think you are unfamiliar with Clancy will probably have seen one of the films that were made of his scribblings; The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games are the most famous efforts and Clear and Present Danger and the aforementioned Sum of all Fears have also been committed to celluloid.

The master of the techno thriller, he is one of the few authors who I will buy in hard back, no matter the expense, as soon as a new novel has been published. Clancy has seen his crown slipping in recent times as he has diversified his efforts. He has lent his name as a co-author to a couple of series of books, neither of which are a patch on his solo efforts IMHO and has written several non-fiction works about the various branches of the US forces (which are apparently very interesting if you like that sort of thing). Most worryingly however, has been the quality of his latest front line novels.

Clancy's main character, Jack Ryan, most famously played by Harrison Ford in Patriot Games, has run his natural course. In recent years, Clancy has interspersed the Jack Ryan novels with various asides, some more succesful then others. Without Remorse was a tour de force, but others in this series which deal with other characters from the main novels have been less succesful. Rainbow Six, about a crack SAS style unit was not too bad and was pardoned as it did at least feel like a complete novel. His penultimate effort, Red Rabbit was very disappointing however, falling far short of what I have come to expect of Clancy. My hopes were high however when I spotted the announcement for Teeth of the Tiger.

As mentioned, Jack Ryan seems to have run his course (although references in this book lead me t
o believe that there is still one more novel left in the series). Clancy therefore takes an interesting step in passing the baton on to the next generation - Jack Ryan jr to be precise who was first introduced to us when his family was under attack in Patriot Games. Jack is recruited, together with his cousins, Dominic and Brian Caruso (an FBI agent and Marine respectively) into an undercover ops team, set up to fight terrorism by Jack Ryan Sr. The organisation has respectable covers but is completely deniable, performing as it does, tasks which are outside the normal legal boundaries set for Government agencies.

Whilst the premise is beleivable when brought to life by the incredibly knowledgeable Clancy, it quickly proceeds into the realm of the fantastically unlikely. Partly this is as a result of the wonder weapon that is developed for use on the enemy, partly that it is rather unlikely that the three family members would be the best men for the job and partly the fac that everything is a little bit too easy.

Clancy is renowned for taking big themes and weaving together several seemingly disparate plot elements into a grand story which is developed properly on a number of levels. This is not the case here - there is very little going on and the conclusion is fairly clear from early on. The beauty of a Clancy novel is to know that the good guy is going to win but to have to figure out how on earth you are going to get from A to B, taking in P, S and F along the way.

The storyline and characters are underdeveloped. The writing is surprisingly sloppy in places and I finished the relatively short (431 pages - about half the size regular readers are accustomed to) book feeling short changed.

It used to be that the publishing of a Clancy novel, usually once every couple of years, was a major event. Now he is putting out shorter, lower quality books on a more frequent basis and alienating his established readership.

For tho
se who are not familiar with Clancy, this book will be seen as a fairly average fast paced thriller. For the millions of readers for whom he is essential reading, to sum up one of his novels as average must be seen as a betrayal. I for one am prepared to give him one last chance and will grab the next one when it hits the book shops - but it really is one last chance - average won't wash I'm afraid - only the exceptional fare of yesteryear is good enough.

Summary: