Reviews for Tom Clancy's Firing Point
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
President Jack Ryan and son save the world again in this latest Tom Clancy thriller by Maden. “Alive, not dead.” That is young Jack’s task in South Korea— to bring a bad guy back for interrogation—but he knows there’s “a long, nasty road of hurt” between life and death. Later, he’s in a Barcelona restaurant sipping vermut when he unexpectedly meets an old flame. They chat, and he leaves just before an explosion kills everyone inside. Rushing back—because that’s what Ryans do—he hears his dying friend whisper “Sammler.” Enraged, he will stop at nothing to find her killer. Later on, a woman from Spain’s security service also dies in Jack’s presence. No wonder he’s single; the guy’s a walking danger zone. In typical Clancy style, the action spans four continents and the Pacific Ocean, where a container ship carrying illegal cargo is sunk. In “a new kind of piracy,” drones disguised as tiger sharks sink enough ships to warrant the attention of President Ryan, whom one character calls “sharp as a tack, and blunt as a hammer.” That’s much better than what a bad guy calls his son: “this Ryan asshole.” Father and son go to great lengths to keep their relationship from being known, yet it’s still curious that no one seems to noodle on the idea they might look alike for a reason. A geek named Gavin, a “one-man wrecking machine when it came to hacking,” pointlessly reminds Jack that he’s “not authorized to do anything.” If Jack follows that advice, half the story disappears. The ultimate stakes are much higher than sunken ships: The theft of trillions of dollars may cause an “economic apocalypse,” and what’s a Clancy thriller without a ticking clock (Jack’s watch, really) and a threat of World War III? Fast action and dead bodies abound in this enjoyable bit of hero worship. It’s assembly-line Clancy: high-quality entertainment, few surprises. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Publishers Weekly
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Bestseller Maden’s unfocused fourth entry in Clancy’s Jack Ryan Jr. franchise (after 2019’s Enemy Contact) takes Jack to Barcelona, Spain, for some vacation after an intelligence mission in South Korea. On his last day before returning home to Virginia, Jake is having a drink in a bar when he spots Renée Moore, a college classmate with whom he was once romantically involved. After chatting, the two agree to get together that evening. Seconds after Jake leaves the bar, the place blows up. Renée dies, but not before uttering a mysterious word: Sammler. Jack joins Laia Brossa, a Spanish Centro Nacional de Inteligencia agent, to hunt down the organization responsible for Renée’s death. Meanwhile, someone is torpedoing container ships in the South Pacific. Large swaths of Spanish history tend to slow the narrative, and readers will struggle to engage with extremely shadowy villains with equally shadowy motives. Even after the main threads are pulled together and the evildoers unmasked, the criminal element and motive remain murky. Maden, a thriller pro, is capable of better. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, William Morris Endeavor. (June)
