Clear and Present Danger (1990)
Clear and Present Danger is a 1990 clark, john (fictitious character), fiction book written by Tom Clancy.
Jack Ryan has climbed to acting deputy director of intelligence at the CIA when the murder of an American official and his family in Colombia hardens Washington's resolve against the drug cartels. Behind Ryan's back, a covert operation puts soldiers on the ground in the jungle and pilots in the air, run by men who assume the political cover will hold. It never quite does. Tom Clancy braids boardroom maneuvering, field craft, and a soldier's-eye view of a deniable war, building toward the moment Ryan grasps how far his own government has gone. Procedural, morally pointed, and thick with tradecraft.
Quick answers
What is Clear and Present Danger about?
Jack Ryan has climbed to acting deputy director of intelligence at the CIA when the murder of an American official and his family in Colombia hardens Washington's resolve against the drug cartels. Behind Ryan's back, a covert operation puts soldiers on the ground in the jungle and pilots in the air, run by men who assume the political cover will hold. It never quite does. Tom Clancy braids boardroom maneuvering, field craft, and a soldier's-eye view of a deniable war, building toward the moment Ryan grasps how far his own government has gone. Procedural, morally pointed, and thick with tradecraft.
When was Clear and Present Danger published?
Clear and Present Danger was published in 1990.
Who made Clear and Present Danger?
Clear and Present Danger was written by Tom Clancy.
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Clear and Present Danger in our writing
- Companion guide: Conspiracy Thrillers
A few thoughts on Clear and Present Danger
The 1994 film with Harrison Ford tightens the plot into a taut political thriller worth pairing with the book. For the war-on-cartels theme rendered even bleaker, Denis Villeneuve's Sicario is the natural next watch, and the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon games let you run the kind of deniable jungle operation the novel puts on trial.
More Jack Ryan, on the page and on screen
This is the novel that first sends Jack Ryan into a deniable war, watching Washington's cover story crumble in real time. These follow him and his world across other formats, the direct film version, a rebooted series, an earlier case as an analyst, and a parallel Clancy thriller built on the same nervous, procedural tension.
Deniable operations that governments won't admit exist
Ryan discovers a covert unit sent into the jungle with no political cover if it goes wrong, soldiers doing a war that officially isn't happening. These titles follow that same shadow world, operatives and agents running missions against cartels or enemies of the state that leadership can disown the moment the cameras turn.
Washington intrigue when the political cover doesn't hold
Clancy spends half the book in boardrooms and situation rooms, watching officials calculate how much deniability they can afford before a field operation blows up in public. These shows and one film live in that same institutional pressure cooker, tracking staffers, diplomats and power players as a cover story starts to come apart.