Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy

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When a group of terrorists carry out a brutal terrorist attacks on mainstreet America, three rookie operatives of a secret organization established off the books by former President Jack Ryan are set on the trail of the men who organized the attack. While two of them, the Caruso brothers, are trained killers (an FBI agent and a marine), the other, Jack Ryan Jr, is nothing but an analyst. As the scope of the conspiracy becomes clear, however, all three men realize that nothing they have been through up until now has prepared them for the reality of the new world order… and that their lives are about to become far more dangerous.

A follow-up to Tom Clancy’s beloved Jack Ryan series, this first book follows three members of Ryan’s family – his two nephews, Dominic and Brian Caruso, and his son, Jack Ryan Jr – as they become involved in a black ops organization that Ryan set up just before leaving office. Although Ryan himself does not appear, he is omnipresent throughout the book, his own actions leading directly to the situation the three younger men find themselves in. Clancy spends as much time as usual on technical description of the world of espionage, and he creates a very realistic situation here for his characters to encounter – an alliance between Columbian drug cartels and Muslim terrorists, leading to an attack on a series of malls. Clancy’s conservative politics and pro-espionage stance are once again obvious here, a fact that sometimes detracts from the likeability of his main characters. While there seems to be an effort to show both sides of the story, the Caruso brothers especially seem to be two-tone cowboy type characters, with a hint of racism and misogynism thrown in. The book moves at a fair pace, however, and the pages turn almost by themselves. I look forward to the follow-ups which bring the original hero of the series back to the forefront. 

I gave The Teeth of the Tiger 3 stars.