Patriot Games

Executive Summary: After enjoying [b:The Hunt for Red October 19691 The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3) Tom Clancy https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1281995542s/19691.jpg 1112006], I had high hopes for this book, and found myself a bit disappointed.Audio book: I've listened to one or two books read by [a:Scott Brick 44554 Scott Brick https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1377113754p2/44554.jpg]. He's a decent reader, but nothing special. He does a passable English and Irish accent here, but not in anyway to make the characters of similar accents distinguishable from one another. He does a better job of that with his American voices, but still not great. I'd happily listen to another book read by him, but wouldn't rank him among my favorite readers.Full ReviewI've seen every Jack Ryan movie they've made (and enjoyed most of them), including this one, but this is only my 3rd book in the series I've read. This is one of the few cases where I think the movie is better though.I rather enjoyed [b:The Hunt for Red October 19691 The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3) Tom Clancy https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1281995542s/19691.jpg 1112006], which I think had a slightly better reader plus a bunch of sound effects that really added to the experience.The real core of my disappointment here was the pacing. The book starts out great and ends pretty well, but really got bogged down inbetween. After a pretty exciting start the next quarter or so seemed to just drag on.See Jack Ryan, budding Analyst and he recovers in a hospital! Contain your excitement as he tours old castles along the English Country side. Watch your anticipation grow and you wonder: Will Jack be able to put together his daughter's Christmas presents while recovering from his wounds?Eventually though things started to pick back and up and I thought I was over a rough patch. Unfortunately things slowed back down again for awhile before a pretty enjoyable finish.Mr. Clancy offers a variety of POVs to give the reader the details from both the terrorists and those trying to catch them. I like this idea, though the execution was lacking in my opinion. If the goal was to accurately portray the tedium and frustration of a CIA analyst, then this book succeeds. However if the goal was to mix in reality with fiction to tell an exciting spy thriller, this book fell short for me. I think for me this was best contrasted by the book I was reading while listening to this. [b:The Deaths of Tao 17726421 The Deaths of Tao (Tao, #2) Wesley Chu https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1376921492s/17726421.jpg 24804136] is a spy thriller with a sci-fi setting, where aliens secretly run the world. [a:Wesley Chu 5990662 Wesley Chu https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1337892454p2/5990662.jpg] is far less known/successful than [a:Tom Clancy 3892 Tom Clancy https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1175466521p2/3892.jpg] yet I found his book far more exciting.While I found this book disappointing, it hasn't completely put me off of the series or Tom Clancy. I may switch to try our his John Clark books instead though. I mostly likely won't be buying my next Clancy book though, and will borrow it from the library instead.