Although the events in this book take place not too long after events in Patriot Games, this was actually the 11th book Tom Clancy published in the Jack Ryan series. Chronologically, it’s the second book, situated between Patriot Games and The Hunt for Red October. It’s hard to pivot between the three different stories, as there are some things that don’t quite sit right between the three books. On the other hand, Clancy has managed to tie in a few details that make the book work as part of the series.
Set during the Cold War, tensions are running high between the West and the Soviet Union. Written after the fall of the Soviet Union, it references events that were taking place prior to that collapse. It’s 1981, and the Soviet Union was struggling economically, and its satellite countries were beginning to hint at breaking away. Nowhere was this more true than in Poland, as the labor movement, led by Lech Walesa, led to worker unrest. In Red Rabbit, Clancy draws on rumors of the Soviet Union being behind the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II due to his Polish heritage and potential leadership in favor of the Polish people during this time. The idea is that they are afraid that the Pope will publicly champion the Polish workers, and as a revered religious leader of millions, he will set in motion events they can no longer control.
Jack Ryan finds himself assigned to London by his new employer, the CIA, as an analyst. He’s notable to just about everyone after having twice saved the life of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the previous book, which makes his assignment to London natural. His wife, Cathy, has secured employment at a London hospital as a surgeon while they are there. They are both in for a bit of culture shock.
Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, Oleg Zaitzev is a young communications officer in the KGB. He stumbles across communication about assassinating the Pope and has a touch of conscience, even though he’s not a religious person. He covertly reaches out to agents in Moscow about defecting and says he has important information they will want, but he won’t talk until he and his family are safely out of the Soviet Union.
The story in Red Rabbit is a good one. There are lots of scheming and machinations, and as a communications officer inside the KGB, he is a very desirable person to bring to the West. The intrigue is great. I loved the details as to how they communicate with him, as well as how the CIA agents in Moscow operate. After watching a series like The Americans, I think seeing how the CIA hides agents in plain sight is very believable. I enjoyed the intrigue.
Unfortunately, Clancy pontificates again and again in Red Rabbit. There are long internal streams of consciousness by various characters that seem to be more about Clancy expressing political views. Those wore on me quite a bit after a while. I’m glad I was listening to it as an audiobook rather than trying to read it. I likely would have given up trying to read it, but listening to it while I was driving worked to get through those parts. I understand that some of it has to do with character development, but it really doesn’t work all that well in that regard. There’s also an incredible amount of detail, which could have been edited out without losing any of the story. Do we really need to know what Jack and Cathy read on their commute to work? Do we need to know when Cathy is preparing spaghetti for dinner? We don’t need to repeatedly know that Jack and Cathy struggle as Americans with British food, nor that Oleg is buying panty hose and porn tapes as a ruse that he’ll be returning to Moscow.
The narrator, Scott Brick, did a fine job. I did enjoy the audiobook, but it would be easy to drift away during some of those stream-of-consciousness moments. It’s a credit to Brick that he held my interest throughout. He voices the characters differently without getting silly. I hate when narrators try too hard to be the character rather than just narrating the story. Brick is clear throughout with few distractions.
Overall, I do recommend the audiobook. I think I would struggle with getting through the physical book, but as an audiobook, it is fine. There are many times I just wanted to scream, “Get on with the story!” It definitely could have used a heavy-handed editor. This is Clancy, though, and he has a reputation for long books full of details. Sometimes, that attention to detail is warranted, but there are too many instances in Red Rabbit where it’s not for me not to comment on it. If you want to read this entry in the Jack Ryan series, I suggest the audiobook.
Previous book in the series:
Next book in the series:
Share this:
Categories: Book Reviews
As you know, I’ve been a Tom Clancy fan since my college days in the mid- to late 1980s. And as both a reader and an author, I know the difference between real life and fiction, and that the latter requires some leeway in bending the former for dramatic effect.
That said, “Red Rabbit” frustrated me when I first read it. Part of my disappointment stemmed from Clancy’s desire to use the novel as a “bully pulpit” to promote Reaganism. (Mind you, I was more center-right then, but I was also seeing how the Gipper and his team had pushed the GOP toward where it is now.) Plus, having read Playboy’s interview with Clancy in the late 1980s, I spotted many of the messaging from that source in the novel.
I can – and did – forgive Clancy for some of the narrative sins you mention in your review (too many minutiae, turgid phrasing), but even though I know the Ryanverse is a fictitious version of our world, I couldn’t get past how he crammed the attempt on the Pope’s life into 1982 instead of setting it in 1981. “It’s just a novel…” became my mantra for a while so I could get through it, but to this day, it remains a sticking point with me.
I don’t think I could have gotten through this trying to read it instead of listening to it. It just had too many sections that would lose me – one thing to listen to it while driving, another to try to focus my brain on the page.
But I did think about this in light of how the Vatican just appointed its first US Pope. Did they deliberately do it as an agent provocateur? They appointed a Polish Pope at a time when there was a crisis in Poland and he could try to peacefully influence a humanitarian outcome. And now they appoint a US one when we seem hell-bent on being the cruelest country in the world. Harder to call yourself a “good Catholic” while advocating deportation of illegals to El Salvador when the Pope is from your country and speaks against it.
About the novel: For me, Clancy’s novels are re-readable from “Hunt” up to “Without Remorse,” I think. After that, he started losing me. I have not re-read “RR,” even though I kept the hardcover.
Re the Catholic Church and its election of Pope Leo XIV: It’s possible that the powers-that-be chose an American (who also has Italian citizenship) to make a not-so-subtle criticism of mostly-Protestant America and her lurching into fascism under Trump and MAGA. After all, most of the Hispanic immigrants affected by folks like Trump, JD Vance (who is a convert to Catholicism), Kristi Noem, and Tom Honan are Catholic or are from majority-Catholic countries.
I think about someone we’re both acquainted with who is a big Trump supporter and loves to brag about his religious beliefs as a devoted Catholic. People like him are the one who should be struggling right now. And he is even of Hispanic origin as well.
There’s no soul-searching or looking-in-the-mirror with folks like that individual. In fact (and this is based on my observations of like-minded folks), their religiosity is primarily theatrical. I can’t understand folks like person you’re referring to (my half-sister is also like that), cos they profess to follow Jesus and Christian values, but their behavior and attitudes are in contradiction to those values.