On This Day In History Techno-Thriller Novelist Tom Clancy Passes Away At Age 66

Erica Lamberg at Fox News notes that on this day in history thriller author Tom Clancy died. 

Tom Clancy, author of such bestselling novels as "The Hunt for Red October" and "Patriot Games," and a lifelong Republican who counted President Ronald Reagan among his fans, died at the age of 66 on this day in history on Oct. 1, 2013, according to multiple sources. 

 

Clancy was an American author best known for his espionage, military science and technological thrillers, noted Biography.com.  

 

He was the author of 17 New York Times bestsellers — and had his career launched by President Reagan.

"'The Hunt for Red October,' his first novel, had been bought for a lowly $5,000 by the Naval Institute Press. When Reagan pronounced it ‘the perfect yarn’ in 1984, Clancy, then a Maryland insurance agent, was propelled into a hugely successful writing career," said The Guardian.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

On this day in history, October 1, 2013, techno-thriller novelist Tom Clancy passes away at age 66 | Fox News

Note: I was a huge Tom Clancy fan, and I enjoyed his thrillers and his nonfiction books on the military. I was saddened by his early death.

Remembering The Tense Spy Thrillers Made From The Work Of Novelist Tom Clancy

Dan Gunderman at the New York Daily News offers a piece on the films made from the late Tom Clancy's spy novels.

On October 1, 2013, Tom Clancy, master of the Cold War espionage novel, passed away at the age of 66.

What he left behind is, undoubtedly, a carefully-fleshed-out and high-stakes literary and filmic world that will continue to impress readers and viewers as the years elapse.

Clancy, who has over 100 million copies of his books in print, conjured up the recognizable character Jack Ryan, a Marine turned investment broker turned CIA operatn the films made from Clancy’s writings, Ryan has been played by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine. He was most recently brought to life in the 2014 film “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” featuring Chris Pine in the title role, with Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley and Kenneth Branagh (who also directed) taking on supporting roles.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/remembering-spy-thrillers-made-work-tom-clancy-article-1.2810424 

On This Day In History: Thriller Writer Tom Clancy Died On This Day In 2013

As History.com notes, on this day in 2013 thriller writer Tom Clancy, author of The Hunt For Red October, Clear and Present Danger and other thrillers, died.

You can read about Tom Clancy via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tom-clancy-author-of-mega-selling-techno-thrillers-dies?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2016-1001-10012016&om_rid=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa&o

You can also read an earlier post on Tom Clancy via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/01/command-authoritytom-clancys-last.html

Best Thrillers Of All Time

The British newspaper the Telegraph offes a list of the best thrillers of all time.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service - It might almost have been any of them, but Fleming’s tenth Bond book reveals the spy in a softer, more humane light, even falling in love and getting married – though not for long – while battling with Ernst Blofield in his high alpine fastness.

 

The Hunt for Red October - At the height of the Cold War the captain of a Russian nuclear submarine that cannot be detected defects to the west, bringing his craft – Red October – with him. The Russians try to stop him. The Americans and the hero Jack Ryan try to stop them. Incredibly tense and superbly claustrophobic.

 

 

The Manchurian Candidate - Set during the Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate concerns the brainwashing of a whole company of soldiers by Korean Communists, to allow their officer to become a “sleeper” in the American Government. Complex and steeped in the paranoia of the time.

 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10609803/Best-thrillers-of-all-time.html 

Command Authority: Tom Clancy's Last Thriller

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review of Tom Clancy's Command Authority in the Washington Times.

A feeling of sad finality gripped me as I read the last of the 739 pages of Tom Clancy's 18th and final thriller. Once again, the acrid scent of cordite wafted through my imagination during the climactic gunbattle as Clancy’s characters from the world of intelligence achieved yet another victory over the forces of evil.

Clancy, who died on Oct. 1 at 66, had boosters as disparate as President Ronald Reagan, who pronounced “The Hunt for Red October,” his first of 18 books, “the perfect yarn” and “non-put-downable.” National Public Radio's Alan Cheuse called him “Faulkner in a flak suit.”

Let’s be blunt about it. Clancy was an acquired taste — beloved by patriots who support a strong military and an effective intelligence community; mocked by leftist woo-woos who argue that a turned-cheek is the best defense against an adversary.

Clancy was an unabashed hard-liner. In his first novels, his heroes fought the USSR and its KGB. When the Iron Curtain tumbled, burying world communism under a heap of rubble, he made a seamless segue into a war against terrorism. I was one of the millions of fans who put him on the best-seller list for 17 straight books.

In “Command Authority,” Clancy has at it again with his original foes, correctly equating the current regime in Moscow as merely a relabeled version of what Reagan once termed “the evil empire.” The Russian president, one Valeri Volodin (somewhat rhymes with “Putin,” eh?) is threatening the military annexation of  Estonia, Ukraine and other former states of the USSR. 

Volodin's plan includes enhanced powers for the FSB, successor to the KGB as a vehicle to subvert his targets from within. He accuses the United States and other Western powers of instigating anti-Russian provocations in Estonia.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/17/book-review-tom-clancys-final-thriller/

Note: In 1984 my wife and I visited Jamaica, our favorite vacation island. I brought along several thrillers to read, including Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October.

I had not heard of Clancy at this point, but being a Defense Department civilian employee, as well as a Navy veteran who spent two years on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War and another two years on a Navy tugboat at the nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland, I was drawn to the novel by the subject matter.

Reading the book on the beach and by the pool, I was surprised at how accurate the details were (he even got the nickname right of a phone dropped into the sea by surface craft to communicate with submarines), and I was even more surprised at his detailing what I believed at the time was classified information. (I later discovered that I was wrong - the information had been declassified).

I became a Clancy fan and I've enjoyed reading all of his subsequent thrillers and his nonfiction books.

Tom Clancy died far too young at 66 and he shall be missed.

A Look Back At Thriller Writer Tom Clancy

Michael Walsh at National Review looks back at Tom Clancy.

It’s probably incorrect to call Tom Clancy, who died on Tuesday at the age of 66, the father of the modern political thriller. That honor should rightly go first to Ian Fleming, about whose James Bond novels little more need be said. Not only did Fleming create the most dashing British hero since Sherlock Holmes, he was also a pulp craftsman of no small literary gifts: “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” runs the opening line of the first Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), a beginning worthy of Melville.

Next comes Frederick Forsyth, whose 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal remains the gold standard for clandestine-world fiction, a gripping tale that has the reader rooting for a cold-blooded assassin, motivated solely by money, to put a bullet through the head of the father of modern France, Charles de Gaulle. Forsyth’s command of history and tradecraft gave the novel its realistic feel, and his inversion of the moral universe immediately distinguished the book from the competition. It would not be until the publication 13 years later of Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October that another work of spy fiction would have such an impact.

That book, you’ll recall, told the story of a rogue Soviet naval officer who hijacks his own submarine and precipitates an international incident. With the world on the brink of World War III, it’s left to the hero, CIA analyst Jack Ryan, to save the day by divining and then acting upon his educated guess that Captain Ramius is defecting, not attacking. But it wasn’t the story itself that rocketed Red October to the top of the best-seller lists. Clancy had never published fiction before — the novel had been rejected by the major publishing houses and was issued by the U.S. Naval Institute Press — but an astute editor saw the possibilities in his command of technology wedded to his narrative gifts. Red October wasn’t just fiction; it was really happening.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360430/tom-clancy-rip-michael-walsh#! 

Thriller Writer Tom Clancy Dies

Foxnews.com reports that thriller writer Tom Clancy died. He was 66.

Celebrated author Tom Clancy, who became famous for popular works like “Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games,” died on Tuesday night, according to multiple media reports. He was 66.

Clancy died after a brief illness at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Born in Baltimore, Md., Clancy first made his name in ‘80s for his suspenseful espionage and military novels. Some of his works, including “The Hunt for Red October” and “The Sum of All Fears,” were turned into blockbuster movies.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/10/02/tom-clancy-dies-at-age-66-according-to-multiple-media-reports/

Happy Birthday To Thriller Writer Tom Clancy

Biography.com noted that today is Tom Clancy's 66th birthday.

Tom Clancy is an American author, best known for his espionage, military science and techno thrillers. Clancy was working as an insurance broker until he wrote his first novel in 1984, The Hunt for Red October. Ten of Clancy's books have earned No. 1 rankings on the New York Times best seller list. Over 50 million copies of his books have been printed and three have been made into movies.  

You can read more about Tom Clancy at biography.com via the below link:

http://www.biography.com/people/tom-clancy-9542178