03/26/2023
Command Authority – A Jack Ryan Novel
In the novel Command Authority, Jack Ryan was sent out to investigate the death of a CIA co-worker. He was never able to find the killer. Instead, he finds KGB assassin who was on the rise to Russian power. 30 years later as the president of the United States, Jack meets an old friend who was poisoned during the meeting. Meanwhile the president of Russia, Valeri Volodin, tasks Russian domestic intelligence called the FSB to create an invasion in Ukraine after NATO stopped them from invading Estonia. As a response, President Jack Ryan sends US military troops to help stop the war. A group called The Campus was gathering information about a Russian criminal organization in Ukraine. The people who were in The Campus were John Clark, Domingo "Ding" Chavez, and Dominic "Dom" Caruso. John Clark worked with Jack Ryan’s father.
Jack Ryan said, “Benjamin Franklin put it like this: 'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Jack Ryan, a young CIA analyst is the protagonist of a series of novels written by various authors, including Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney, Grant Blackwood, Mike Maden, Marc Cameron, and Don Bentley. The son of a police detective and a nurse, Ryan is a former U.S. Marine and stockbroker who becomes a professor of civilian history at the United States Naval Academy. Ryan joins the Central Intelligence Agency as an analyst, occasional field officer, and eventually deputy director. After retiring from the CIA, Ryan becomes National Security Advisor and Vice President. Following a terrorist attack on the United States Capitol, suddenly serves as the President of the United States.
A defining characteristic of Jack Ryan is that of an intuitive trait. He can take the same information others have looked at many times and find conclusions no one else had seen. Jack Ryan is a thinking type of person. He sifts through data from various sources and presents conclusions for a living. Not embracing emotional conclusions, for Ryan choices have a rational basis. If Jack Ryan did have a plan for his life, it got very derailed somewhere along the way. He marries Cathy Ryan and has two kids, Sally and Jack Ryan Junior.
The structure of the book is done well, and the plot is not shown in chronological order. The story also has good character development and character arcs. The Cold-War part of this book is very well written. I like the way that everyone in the Campus interacts with one another. I also like how Jack Ryan Jr. decides to help the Campus in anyway that he can. Overall, the characters were well written. The novel does capture the readers attention emotionally by describing how dangerous invasion of a country can be. The story is so foreshadowing considering the fact that there is currently a war in Ukraine. Sadly, this book was released two months after Tom Clancy died.
I would highly recommend anyone who has not read this book and is interested in thriller novels to check this one out. It is a very action packed novel that is worth reading. There are still more Jack Ryan books to come written by Don Bentley and Marc Cameron. I am looking forward to read them.
