College Daze: 'The Cardinal of the Kremlin' Book Review: August 23, 1989

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© 1989 Putnam
Reviewer's Note: I originally wrote this in August of 1989 for the Miami-Dade Community College - South Campus student newspaper, Catalyst. 

 Summer, that prime time for readers, may be over, but Tom Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin, the third entry in the Jack Ryan series, is a spy novel for all seasons.

Ryan, a CIA analyst introduced in Clancy's first novel, The Hunt for Red October, finds himself in a web of intrigue involving a highly placed "mole" - code-named Cardinal - in the Kremlin, a husband-and-wife CIA team stationed in Moscow, KGB surveillance teams, Afghan rebels and a race between American and Soviet scientists to develop a Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars" system.

Although this sounds complex, Cardinal is fast-paced and engrossing. And although there's a lot of gadgetry involved, don't expect Ryan to give you James Bond-style heroics.

As in his previous novels (Red October, Red Storm Rising and Patriot Games), Clancy manages to describe the "tricks of the trade" of modern espionage while at the same time crafting an entertaining storyline.

- Alex Diaz-Granados, managing editor.

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