Book Review: A Cold War Spy Novel

I just finished listening to the audiobook version of Tom Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin.




Published in 1988, near the end of the Cold War, The Cardinal of the Kremlin tells the story of a CIA source placed very, very highly in the Soviet government, and the data this source is feeding the American government. This book has it all--espionage, counter-espionage, kidnappings, gun fights, dead drops, psychological "persuasion", blind passes, submarines, Afghan rebels, and anti-ballistic missile lasers. Jack Ryan, whom Clancy first introduced in The Hunt for Red October (another very, very good book), plays a major part in this story as well. While I'm not a fan of all of Clancy's books, this one is pretty good.

Clancy does a good job of weaving several disparate threads together into a single tale. In random sections of his books, he will insert short paragraphs like this:

"The ships slipped their moorings just after midnight, and made their way north under a moonless sky. The crews went about their business as usual, while the admiral sat in his command chair, brooding over his orders."

And that's it. No names, no time frames, no locations. Every 50 or 60 pages you'll get another snippet about the ships, but again, not much in the way of context. Then, 300 pages after they were first mentioned, they become an integral part of the story, and you have a forehead-slapping "a-HA!" moment. Cardinal is no different, and I had several of these moments while listening to this book (which is dangerous, since I listen to audiobooks on my commute back and forth to work).

I think that I'm a little partial to Clancy's earlier works because they're set against the backdrop of the Cold War. My dad was in the Army, and we were stationed in Germany twice during the 1980's. I wasn't old enough to comprehend all of it at the time, but I did know that, not far from our home, there were large formations of enemy troops ready to invade Germany if given the word. I also knew that my dad would have to try to stop them if that ever happened. It was an interesting time to be in that place, and I feel fortunate to have experienced it, even as a military dependent. That experience has led me to being a student of Cold War history today.

Clancy is fond of using a lot of technical military jargon in his books (I think it's his way of showing off how much he knows), but it's not so much that it interferes with the story.

So if you like a good spy story, this is one not to miss.