Flash Point is the best thriller I’ve read since AJ Quinell was active. It’s the right mix of geo-politics, critical thinking and cool weapons. He actually walks the reader through some cool weaponry, about which I happen to know a little.
There is a lot written by different authors about Tom Clancy’s hero, Jack Ryan, and now about him and his son, so well have a chance to compare authors’ skills in a bounded environment. It’s a bit like the food fight that has been going on with Robert B. Parker’s Spenser and Jesse Stone, where you know the character well and get to see how well authors treat him in prose.
It’s time for a new Clancy, (Red-October, et al) or Quinell (Man on Fire, et al). This may be it.
I’ve been noodling the term, ’National Security Techno-thriller’. Maybe we should create a new category for that with an annual winner—maybe call it a Henry, for the Good Dr. who just turned 100. I just read a ‘Henry’ worthy novel named Flash Point. This guy is good.
The editing is superb. Big chunks of necessary explanatory chunks are smoothed with spacing, tags and probably, experience. Copy-editing is flawless, unlike so much of what is published today in this genre.
Jack Ryan, the protagonist, can go a lot of places and do a lot of things, which makes it easier to come up with a good story setting or plot. If he spoke Arabic or Cantonese the opportunities would be endless.
The thread of the old jack Ryan together with the new President, his father, is done well. There is just enough.
In character development, he takes a lot of time explaining the impact of duty fighting emotion. Again, nicely done.
I suspect female readers might tire quickly of the techo-guns stuff detail. I got quite a bit of feedback to that effect from my smart female first-readers with The Mahdi. That is the just finished manuscript of this type of thriller, my fourth, that I await from copy edit. I have to credit Bentley with noting the Heckler and Koch 416 with the attached 40mm grenade launcher; that round is the close combat weapon of the near future. Make it more accurate, up the quality of the explosive, drive it with software. Magic.
Flash Point got hairy at the 50% mark, after lots of great shoot-‘em-up. One is required to think beyond that point.
I was fascinated with the pilot chatter, full of stuff I had never thought about. And the whole P-8 narrative was fantastic. This guy Bentley is connected.
I’ve been noodling the term, ’National Security techno-thriller’. Maybe we should create a new category for that with an annual winner—maybe call it a Henry, for the Good Dr. who just turned 100. I just read a Henry.
Great read.
Robert Cook, author of Pulse
Tom Clancy Flash Point: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel, Book 10
4.6
| 6,949 ratingsPrice: 19.69
Last update: 07-29-2024