Red Storm Rising is surely the defining no of Tom Clancy’s illustrious writing career. He has had many successes before and
since, but the 1986 publication of this sublimely complex and intriguing tale heralded a new era in military and espionage thrillers. It is a pre glasnost affair, and strategic weapons still dotted the tactical landscape of the world.
Front line NATO units in West Germany came to increased states of readiness on an almost daily basis and world war three was always only a hair trigger away. Clancy has captured perfectly the utter chaotic and suspicious mindset that prevailed in the heady days of nineteen eighties cold war Europe. The Berlin wall didn’t come down until 1989, and up until then, everything and everyone east of it was a potential threat.
Red Storm Rising is full of Clancy technical terminology, which to be fair to him, he does go to some lengths to explain. Its probably one of his most technologically laden books, but that simply adds to the tension, which by the way, begins on page one, builds at a steady pace, and never lets up.
The story moves around in rotation, with perhaps as many as twenty different scenarios being played out in the build up to and aftermath of a Soviet pre emptive strike against NATO
forces in the European theatre and naval forces in the North Atlantic. The omission of inter continental ballistic missiles and low yield tactical nukes is a master stroke, and in any case makes the story last longer than the
second page. The Soviets opt for massive armoured attacks against the vastly inferior numbers of the NATO forces, and the fighting scenes are brilliantly described, helped along greatly by Clancy’s love for narrating all things military, particularly in the hardware department.
Page turning from beginning to end and well worth a second or third read when other books of this genre fail to satisfy.