The top five Tom Clancy novels

At the Guardian John Dugdale named his five best Tom Clancy novels, including:

Clear and Present Danger (1989)

Ryan advances to near the top of the CIA in a novel about the Reagan-era "war on drugs", reflecting Clancy's closeness to the Republican president. Different US agencies conduct a covert campaign against a Colombian cartel (the titular clear and present danger). However, the hero is unusually cast as a quasi-dissident within the agency, left out of the loop initially and pressing colleagues and the president to go public about the operation. In intercepting narco-barons' mobile phone calls and keeping politicians in the dark, it has been noted, the semi-fictional CIA of this novel anticipates the post‑9/11 tactics of the NSA and JSOC, as exposed in Edward Snowden's leaks to the Guardian.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue