Command Authority (Jack Ryan Series) - Mark Greaney, Tom Clancy Audiobook

Written by Mark Greaney, Tom Clancy
Read by Lou Diamond Phillips
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: December 3, 2013
Duration: 17:53:28

There’s a new strong man in Russia but his rise to power is based on a dark secret hidden decades in the past. The solution to that mystery lies with a most unexpected source, President Jack Ryan.

In the entertaining final Jack Ryan novel, Russian president Valeri Volodin has imperialistic ambitions similar to those of a certain real-life Russian president. Failure to annex Estonia thanks to unexpected NATO resistance only redirects Russian attention to the Crimea and other lands currently outside NATO’s formal umbrella.

Meanwhile, President Ryan’s son, Jack Ryan Jr., investigates what appears to be an unrelated case involving Russian gangsters exploiting a corrupt system to steal a vast fortune. In fact, the opportunistic appropriation links the ambitions of a once-obscure KGB officer decades ago to the events unfolding in the Crimean region and to the early career of President Ryan himself.

Although the military conflict is an important part of the plot, this is a classic spy novel. Fans of extended combat sequences should look elsewhere, as the focus is on high stakes espionage and assassinations carried out in rented rooms and dark alleys, not well-lit battlefields.