Patriot Games, by Tom Clancy, is a thrilling novel, crammed full with action and excitement from beginning to end. It follows the story of Jack Ryan who, after saving the life of the Prince of Wales, his wife and baby, is hunted by Irish terrorists of the Ulster Liberation Army. I found this book really enjoyable and it has to be one of the best novels I have read in a long time.
             Jack Ryan, the hero of this great book, is in London to gather information on the new book that he is writing. When he goes to meet his wife and daughter after they have been on a shopping trip, he ends up stopping an assassination attempt on the lives of the Prince and Princess of Wales (and their baby son). This causes Jack to become caught up in a battle against terrorism and he ends up being hunted by one of the deadliest Irish terrorists the world has ever known.
             Jack Ryan is, I think, a middle-aged man. Tom Clancy doesn't describe in detail what the hero of the novel looks like to the reader (therefore I do not have any quotations to use when describing him). This leaves the reader him/herself to picture what the main character looks like. I think this is a good technique to use as the reader can probably relate to the main character better than if the author described the character. Jack Ryan is "an instructor in history at the US Navel Academy in Annapolis" and once consulted the CIA in "Junior Varsity" which doesn't help him much when the Irish terrorist, Sean Miller, starts to hunt Jack down. Jack isn't too worried about this and doesn't really care until one day when Cathy, his wife, goes to collect their daughter, Sally, from school. The terrorists see this as an opportunity to get back at Jack and they try to kill his wife and daughter but the terrorists miss and cause Cathy to crash the car into a barrier. This, in turn causes Sally to lose her spleen, which means that she will find it harder to fight of infection. Her legs are also damaged...