The stirring action begins in the White House, in a typical Clancy scene that not only sets up the premise-a radical American initiative against Colombian drug traffic-but also offers nifty inside-info: that the Oval Office's windows are made of light-distorting, bullet-resistant polycarbonate that the President's chair is backed with bullet-proof DuPont Kevlar. That's no problem, though: the front of the novel, like the rest, is built of geared subplots, each of which has teeth enough to snag the reader. So complex, so intricately researched and detailed is Clancy's newest battle plan that his main hero-CIA-agent Jack Ryan, veteran of three past Clancy novels-doesn't appear until about 100 pages of this 500-page juggernaut have rolled by. This time out, the best-selling ace swivels his big guns away from his usual Russian targets (glasnost fallout?) and toward a nearly homegrown menace: the cocaine lords of Colombia and their deadly white powder. The Great Clancy Thriller Machine rumbles on, engines on full.
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