Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Clancy, Tom - Morton Kondracke (review date 28 July 1991)

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Morton Kondracke (review date 28 July 1991)

SOURCE: "A Missile for Every Occasion," in New York Times Book Review, July 28, 1991, pp. 9-10.

[In the following review, Kondracke offers a favorable assessment of The Sum of All Fears. According to Kondracke, "In its plotting, vividness and suspense, this is Mr. Clancy's best book since The Hunt for Red October."]

One of Tom Clancy's many gifts as a writer of thrillers is that he constantly taps the current world situation for its imminent dangers and spins them into an engrossing tale. In 1984 and 1986, before United States-Soviet relations had begun to thaw, Mr. Clancy wrote The Hunt for Red October, in which the defection of a Soviet submarine captain nearly provokes World War III, and Red Storm Rising, in which a conventional World War III nearly leads to a nuclear war. In 1987, when Muammar el-Qaddafi seemed a greater menace than the Kremlin leadership. Mr. Clancy...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Walter Isaacson (review date 11 August 1986)
   2. Anthony Hyde (review date 26 July 1987)
   3. Ross Thomas (review date 2 August 1987)
   4. Robert Lekachman (review date 31 July 1988)
   5. Ross Thomas (review date 13 August 1989)
   6. David Wise (review date 13 August 1989)
   7. Elliott Abrams (review date 16 August 1989)
   8. Morton Kondracke (review date 28 July 1991)
   9. Bob Shacochis (review date 4 August 1991)
   10. Louis Menand (review date 16 September 1991)
   11. William F. Ryan (essay date Winter 1993)
   12. G. Gordon Liddy (review date 22 August 1993)
   13. Walter L. Hixson (essay date Fall 1993)
   14. John Calvin Batchelor (review date 21 August 1994)
   15. John Lehman (review date 2 September 1994)
   16. Christopher Buckley (review date 2 October 1994)
   17. Michael R. Beschloss (review date 18 August 1996)
   18. Paul Dean (review date 25 August 1996)
   19. Christopher Hitchens (review date 14 November 1996)
   20. Helen S. Garson (essay date 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Tom Clancy