The Teeth of the Tiger: A Jack Ryan Novel (Paperback)

It is clear now in retrospect that since "Executive Orders" Clancy has seriously lost momentum. "Rainbow Six" was a John Clark novel that originally indicated Clancy was taking a break from Jack Ryan again. But "The Bear and the Dragon" showed that Clancy no longer knew what to do with Jack Ryan. On the one hand the story, with China and Russia going to war, was again upping the ante for what was at stake, but the family element, always a strong component in these books, was essentially gone. Clancy tried to reset his character, taking Jack Ryan back to the early days in "Red Rabbit" and dealing with a real event: the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. It was the mission more than the time frame that made that particular book seem different and I had to wonder if events in the real world had moved so far beyond the Cold War that existed when Clancy began writing that the fictional world he had created was collapsing because of external forces.

That idea gains credence in "The Teeth of the Tiger," where September 11th has happened, but we have no idea how it fits into the Clancy chronology. The opening chapters of this novel reminded me of the opening credits of "Aliens3" where everything you liked about the previous story was jettisoned. Jack Ryan is now retired, as are most of the major supporting characters we have come to know, and one of them is dead. You will be shocked by who is now POTUS and a bit miffed that there is no explanation for how that particular abomination took place. On the one hand, clearly Clancy is trying to clear the table, whether to start over or to get back to the basics will be your call when you finished reading the novel. But while none of the familiar characters appear, they still get talked about a lot.

Our hero is now John Patrick Ryan, Jr., although he is actually one of a trio of youngsters at the heart of this story. The others are his cousins, Dominic and Brian Caruso, a rookie FBI agent and a Marine captain just back from Afghanistan, who have caught the eye of the people at "The Campus." What this novel is about, in terms of contemporary geopolitics, is Tom Clancy's solution to the Brave New World of terrorism. When anybody with an automatic weapon and the willingness to die can cause serious damage, the old rules no longer apply. Set up by President Ryan before he left office, "The Campus" operates outside the system, free of government restrictions and Congressional oversight. Its mission is to identify and locate terrorist threats and to eliminate them.

The result of this next generation of Clancy heroes is best described as "Jack Ryan Lite," as history repeats itself and another Jack Ryan proves himself to be a natural in the field of intelligence with a knack for getting his hands dirty. This new trio certainly talks a lot more (and way too much in public), especially the two brothers (fraternal twins), who endlessly debate things in the way those chatty FBI agents and Marine officers tend to do. Junior, as he is usually called, never interacts with any of his family besides his cousins, which is a conscious but artificial choice by Clancy (Has the author been shying off this element since his divorce and remarriage? You decide). The other thing missing are the wonderful backstories that Clancy used to work in for characters (e.g., the whole Red Wegener bit from "Clear and Present Danger"), which is one reason that "The Teeth of the Tiger" does not have the heft of its predecessors.

Of course, when you are not dealing with a nuclear explosion, biochemical warfare, or military invasions, a series of "minor" terrorist attacks and a handful of assassinations seems almost trivial. But this is the world in which we now live and the one in which Tom Clancy clearly wants his next generation of characters to do their job. I do not fault the idea, but the execution is not up to Clancy's standards and again I see the need for an editor to step in and make him clean up his writing. Characters are saying the same things over and over again in only slightly different ways. Most importantly, "The Teeth of the Tiger" fails the ultimate test of a Clancy book. From time to time I will pick up "Patriot Games" or "Executive Orders" and reread my favorite parts. But like "The Bear and the Dragon," this latest Clancy novel is going up on the shelf and is probably not coming back down again, which is the most damming critique I can offer.

The concepts of sanctioned action outside of nearly any governmental oversight, the drug trade and finally forms of revenge were all explored in the other works that I mentioned. The new twist here has to do with populating the events with Jack Ryan Jr. and two of his first cousins. There is nothing here readers have not been exposed to before and have enjoyed. Mr. Clancy brings great authenticity to the organizations he creates here just as he always does in his work. What is missing this time is the very deft hand he has always been when it comes to the gadgets and weapons systems he presented. His books read as though he had unique access to information, one work even included a satellite photo that caused a bit of an uproar. His very first book was said to have caused consternation in the Navy due to the remarkable and correct detail he offered readers This book’s events largely take place in the world of cyberspace and Mr. Clancy clearly is not as comfortable with this and related subjects.

I have read all of his stand-alone novels and as a reader from the very first work I would like to see new novels and complete works like those he presented in the past. When you see this book you will immediately note how slender a volume it is for this author. At 430 pages it is comparatively brief, and with the introduction of Ryan Jr. it appears much of Jack Sr.’s career is going to be explored once again. Placing the next generation of the Ryan family in the loop does not constitute a new novel. In this instance the book read like a re-tread and is not a major new work by Mr. Clancy. If fans are not enamored by this work it will mark the second tale in a row that has disappointed his readers.

The story is based on the highly improbable premise that America’s secret new spy agency will employ, purely by coincidence, Jack Ryan’s son and two of his cousins. Little effort is made in the development of these characters and some of the dialogue between them is excruciatingly, painfully, embarrassingly bad with…

“You packin?”
“Bet your bippy bro. You?”
“Hang a big roger on that.”

…typical of the sort of rubbish perpetrated in this book.

The plot is one of Islamic terrorists attacking America and an unofficial new agency which executes them without reference to judge or jury. This is far from ambitious compared with Clancy’s earlier work and the entire novel comes across as being a very transparent attempt to articulate and justify his own, obviously extreme, ideas. The action scenes are neither original nor particularly exciting and the story frequently becomes lost in meaningless descriptions of car journeys and other unnecessary digressions.

As a former Clancy fan I take no pleasure in dismissing this book as dull, repetitive flag waving rubbish. Much the same can be said of Clancy’s last few books such as Red Rabbit, The Bear and the Dragon and Rainbow Six and it is amazing to think how far this author has declined from his peak with classics like Red Storm Rising and The Cardinal of the Kremlin.