Finished: The Hunt for Red October (Clancy) How have I never read a Tom Clancy book before?? This was quite a page-turner. :-) I've seen Harrison Ford's two Jack Ryan movies, but I've never seen The Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin. I had heard my son and hubby speak of it before, so I knew it involved a Russian submarine captain trying to defect to the U.S. I think the book would have been all the more exciting had I not known that ahead of time. Anyway...it was a great read! It did get a little over-technical for me at times describing all the different navy submarine and ship systems of the U.S. and Russia, but the actual action was great! Renowned Russian submarine captain, Marko Ramius puts an intricate plan into action when he takes out Russia's latest and greatest new submarine, the Red October, for a test run. The upper officers on his crew, all who have been hand-trained by him, are also wanting to defect. Thus begins a call to arms by both the Russians and the U.S. as every ship and submarine in the Russian fleet heads towards the American coast looking for the missing submarine. As it turns out, the arrogant Ramius has written a goodbye letter to the Russian government letting them know he is defecting, and not only that, going to hand over their pride and joy, the Red October, to the United States. CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, has figured the scheme out and is instantly catapulted into the middle of the action. Even though he calls himself "just" a historian and analyst, he becomes the go to man for the U.S. Navy when things with their hand-picked team go wrong. Jack Ryan ends up on the Russian submarine, along with a veteran U.S. submarine captain, Bert Mancuso, as they attempt to fool the Russians by evacuating all of Ramius' unknowing younger crew, and then blowing up an old U.S. submarine and pretending that the Red October blew up due to a radiation leak before all the lead officers and the two Americans could disembark. This way, the Americans could keep the Russian submarine to study. It's a pretty nifty idea, with some last minute thrills at the end. I think I'd really like to see the movie now! :-)