Contemporary Literary Criticism | Clancy, Tom - Paul Dean (review date 25 August 1996)

Paul Dean (review date 25 August 1996)

SOURCE: "Harrison Ford, Call Your Agent," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 25, 1996, p. 5.

[In the following review, Dean offers tempered praise for Executive Orders.]

In this, his longest and lumpiest collage of fundamental values and techno-babble, Tom Clancy resolves our Clinton-Dole-Perot-Nader uncertainties by suggesting the least of five evils: Jack Ryan for president.

Ryan—the indestructible, tighter-zippered superhero tied to Clancy and the CIA as closely as martini-weenie James Bond was to Ian Fleming and M15—certainly speaks what the electorate knows in its heart is right. "Please, do not send me politicians. I need people who do real things in the real world. I need people who do not want to live in Washington. I need people who will not try to work the system…."

He knows what's been klutzing up the system: "What ever happened to the truth?… It's all a game...

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