Command Authority by Tom Clancy

 

Command Authority by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney

(Jack Ryan #9)

740 pages / 17 hrs, 53 mins

"Decades ago, when he was a young CIA analyst, President Jack Ryan, Sr. was sent on what was supposed to be a simple support mission to investigate the death of an operative who had been looking into suspicious banking activities at a Swiss bank. Ryan's dogged tenacity uncovered not only financial deceit, but also the existence of a KGB assassin, code-named Zenith. He was never able to find the killer. But in the shadowy world of covert operations, nothing stays hidden forever. In the present, a new strongman has emerged in the ever-chaotic Russian republic--the enigmatic President Valeri Volodin. His rise to power was meteoric, but shrouded in deception and treachery. The foundations of his personal empire are built on a bloody secret from his past, and he will eliminate anyone who comes close to that truth. For he has set in motion a plot to return Russia to its former glory and might, with the rest of the world once again trembling in fear of the mighty Bear. When an old friend of the Ryans is poisoned by a radioactive agent, the trail leads to Russia. And Jack Ryan, Jr. -- aided by his compatriots John Clark and the covert warriors of the secretive Campus -- must delve into an international conflict thirty years in the making, and finish what his father started." (from the publisher)

I think this is the first Tom Clancy novel I've read. It was very well written, as one would expect. The technical details were beyond my comprehension and there were a lot of characters to keep track of, however, I was able to follow the story reasonably well. I give it four out of five stars.