I miss Tom Clancy. This book employs his classic characters in new storylines. The writing is just not as good as Tom Clancy's original story. If you just can't get enough of the original characters, then this book is fine.

There's a traitor in West Berlin, a top secret plane crashes during a test flight, and a consulate employee is mugged but when her purse is returned nothing was taken but something was added. It is the height of the Cold War and CIA Analyst Jack Ryan is sent to West Germany to uncover the traitor. When his search takes him into East Germany, can Ryan escape detection or will he be arrested, tortured, and possibly executed?

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I love Marc Cameron's books in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Universe. He writes about Jack Ryan, Sr. and while I enjoy the Jack Ryan, Jr. books Senior is my favorite as it was his stories that got me reading for pleasure again.

After college, when I had time to read for pleasure again, I had no idea what to read as an adult. Mom had a small collection of Jack Ryan books on the bookshelf and as I had enjoyed the movie The Hunt for Red October (in my head Jack, Sr is always Harrison Ford) I decided to pick up The Cardinal of the Kremlin. That's all it took and I was hooked on Cold War-era espionage novels.

As far as I can tell Red Winter takes place after The Patriots Games where Ryan foils an Irish terrorist attack and The Hunt for Red October where Ryan negotiates the defection of a Russian submarine captain as these two incidents are referenced. But it is before Clear and Present Danger when he meets John Clark on a mission in South America. John Clark is in Red Winter but the two do not meet and there is a brief statement that indicates that Ryan has not met the man.

Speaking of characters that we know from the original books written by Tom Clancy, several make an appearance - Mary Pat, John Clark, and Dan Murray to name a few. While Mary Pat appears in The Cardinal of the Kremlin but I can't remember if Ryan met her then. It seems like he is meeting her for the first time in Red Winter when she is assigned as his field agent for the mission.

If you don't know, Tom Clancy often published books out of chronological order. I once read that he was writing multiple books and whichever one he finished first was the one that was published. He must of kept really good notes as there are often mentions in his stories of events that we will later read about in another book.

As Cold War espionage novels are my first love I was super excited that we delved into a previously untold story from Ryan's past in Red Winter. Everything that made me fall in love with the genre is present in this book. The drama and the tension of never knowing who to trust and the real dangers of spycraft in a low-tech world made it nearly impossible to put this book down.

Cameron definitely immerses us firmly in the 1980s. I couldn't help but smile when he describes Jennifer North's outfit - high-waisted slacks and a blouse with a popped collar (it was how he described the popped collar that really had me smiling as memories of my own popped collar days rose to the surface).

If you have never picked up a Jack Ryan novel, that's okay. You can start right here. The jumping around the timeline that Tom Clancy started and has continued with Marc Cameron makes it easy to pick up any volume in the series and dive right in.

I recently read that Marc Cameron is stepping away from the Jack Ryan Universe to focus on his own books. He has two series of his own - Jericho Quinn and Arliss Cutter. I will miss him and I hope the person taking over the Jack, Sr focused books in the series does just as good of a job as Cameron has.

If you love espionage novels where the spies rely on chalk marks and dead drops, then you need to read this book.

My review is published at Girl Who Reads - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2023/03/red-winter-by-marc-cameron-review.html

Exciting and entertaining! Tom Clancy’s Red Winter by Marc Cameron is engaging from the start to finish. A top secret experimental plane goes down and it sparks a series of events that takes Jack Ryan to East Germany. Some familiar characters play a vital role in securing national secrets.

A riveting, action-packed Clancy thriller and Marc Cameron delivers what I expected in this throwback to the era of the Cold War. There are two mysteries occurring simultaneously worlds apart with riveting action and betrayal. An entertaining Jack Ryan story.

ARC was provided by NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam in exchange for an honest review.

An intriguing thriller that covers a wide variety of situations as well as a great many miles to relate events, that though fictional, could actually happen. Travel through a number of spy organizations butting heads to be the top dog and arrive at the pinnacle prior the other chasers! From the wilds of Nevada to the streets of Germany. Follow Jack Ryan as he becomes super sleuth, life saver, and methodical thinker. Well developed characters lead us through situations, unnerving and frighting, to a once again win for our hero Jack.

I have received a free copy of this book. Opinions expressed are my own.


5 Stars

Spencer Birt

Marc Cameron is one of my favorite authors. He has provided me much reading pleasure. In Red Winter, he takes two topics that don't fit well and turns them into a novel. I am sorry, but this was not satisfying. There was no real thrill in either story. So now that he has this one out of the way, I look forward to the next one!
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

Marc Cameron is back with another Jack Ryan installment. This one is takes place in Jack’s past when he was a young and up and coming CIA Analyst. Jack is recalled from England by his mentor James Geer. He has an offer of a job back in the United States for Jack, but before he does Greer needs him to go to East Germany to verify and bring in a possible new asset. Jack sets off on his mission, along with a few familiar friends. Meanwhile, back in the US, a piece of debris from a secret hi tech plane falls into the wrong hands. Dan Murray of the FBI is brought in to find the piece and arrest the spy before he can deliver it to The enemy.

This was a fantastic entry into the world of Jack Ryan. It was so fun to read about one of his adventures in the CIA before he became the legend. Watching Jack interact with future confidants and friends in the early stages of their relationship was thrilling. Seeing him gain their trust and respect was very interesting.

The plot itself was, like any Jack Ryan Thriller, very dense with numerous characters. While it was dense, it never seemed to drag with lots of actions and events happening throughout. The character index at the beginning of the book, a staple with any Jack Ryan Thriller, was key and I referenced it multiple times.

This book was one of my favorite reads of the year. The throwback to the 1980s Cold War era was different from a lot of books out there currently. It reminded me of the first few books in the series. Overall an amazing thriller that is well worth the read. Thank you to @Netgalley, @MarcCameron1, and @PenguinBooks for a free arc for an honest review.

Book Review – Tom Clancy Red Winter – Marc Cameron
Author Marc Cameron has written a remarkable classic, Cold War spy thriller in “Tom Clancy’s Red Winter.” This novel reminded me of the original Tom Clancy books with plenty of spy and political intrigue, intense action, and well-developed characters, both good and bad. The plot and 1985 storyline fit neatly into the Clancy-style, although more streamlined than Clancy's original works. Red Winter is a ‘rock-solid’ Cold War spy classic! Readers who are well versed in the Jack Ryan Universe (Ryanverse) and those new to the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan series, will be more than pleased with this book! Cameron links Red Winter to many of Clancy’s original storylines including beloved characters’ backstories, CIA spy methods, and military tactics and strategy. I loved CIA operatives Mary Pat Foley’s spy craft, John Clark’s ‘badassery’, James Geer’s instinct and FBI Agent Dan Murray’s investigative skills. Observing a young Jack Ryan, Sr. in his early years at the CIA was also invigorating. Creative plot, strong storyline, and powerful action, Red Winter is a brilliant espionage spy thriller read. A masterful job by Marc Cameron. Definitely a 2022 Top 10 Thriller! Thank you NetGalley, Putnam Publishing and Marc Cameron for the digital ARC of Red Winter.

Marc Cameron takes you back to the early days of Jack Ryan Sr.’s career in Red Winter. Taking place after The Hunt for Red October, it takes him into East Berlin with the more experienced agent, Mary Pat Foley. A young embassy worker was contacted by a possible defector. His instructions suggest that the embassy has a mole and requests that someone not connected to the embassy contact him. In Washington, Jim Greer requests Ryan and Foley to vet the potential defector. Another familiar character, John Clark, is secretly sent to provide back up and keep them safe.

As events unfold in East Berlin, a problem also arises in Nevada. An experimental plane has crashed. The crash was witnessed by Garit Richter, a deep cover East German spy who was camped along with a group of watchers hoping to see a UFO. After killing two members of the group, Richter manages to escape with a piece of the plane that has an experimental coating on it. The pilot had ejected and witnessed Richter’s actions from a distance, setting off a massive manhunt for the spy.

Cameron takes you into a divided Cold War Berlin, where the eastern sector is a grim reminder of the paranoia, the Russian presence and the East German police state. From the moment that Ryan and Foley cross through Checkpoint Charlie it is a story of spy versus spy where mistakes lead to death. It was a treat to see the young Jack Ryan again. Cameron keeps the tension high throughout, making this a book that I could truly not put down. I would like to thank NetGalley and Penguin Group - Putnam for providing this book for my review.

In RED WINTER, Marc Cameron takes Tom Clancy fans back to the early days of John Patrick Ryan stationed in England. Set in the time between The Hunt for Red October and The Cardinal of the Kremlin, the plot of RED WINTER involves the crash of a top-secret aircraft, a race to stop the Soviets from stealing its secrets, and a high-ranking defector that has Jack Ryan going behind the iron curtain to find out the truth.

Coincidentally, Cameron says he began his law enforcement career the same year Red October was published.

Read the full interview in the December edition of The Big Thrill

I received an ARC through "NetGalley" and Iam voluntarily leaving an honest review.

This story begins with a group of people on the Nevada desert looking for UFO's. There is also an individual who is looking fpr information pertaining to a mystery aircraft that is doing test runs. He is a spy from East Germany. As it happens this spy is around when the mystery plane crashes and once he was able to get to the scene he searched the debris for pieces of the plane. He found a small section that he could hide on his body. In his getaway he wound up killing two individuals. This event brought the FBI into play to try and locate this spy.

At the same time this was going on an event happened in West Germany where a member of the consulate was ambushed and her purse was taken. People that witnessed the event were able to capture the thief and the purse was returned. When checking the contents a disk and note were discovered. The woman then notified her boss. As a result of this discovery Jack was sent to West Germany to make contact with an individual that wished to defect. In addition to Jack, Mary Foley and John Clark were sent there as support.

Read along as Dan Murray, the FBI lead and Jack's team each went their separate ways to accomplish the assigned task. See how Dan was able to narrow down the discovery of the spy as well of what obstacles Jack and his crew needed to overcome in meeting with the defecor.

The story is well done and is well woth reading. You won't be able to guess the ending.

This is a turn back in time showing you some of what happened during the Cold War in Berlin, Germany. The wall is up and people are attempting to go back and forth for intelligence and to save people. It also partly takes place in the Western United States in the High Deserts. How putting these two together makes for a great story!

If Red Winter is a preview of the new direction of the Jack Ryan Sr. series, you can go ahead and take my money now for the next dozen installments. Marc Cameron has written a stunning throwback story with all the hallmarks of tradecraft and intrigue of the early Clancy thrillers, but enhances the experience by mixing in the genre’s contemporary focus on the mental and emotional forces characters must overcome.

Cameron transports us back to the height of the Cold War to 1985 Berlin. A lowly state department employee is accosted and given evidence that an East German is looking to defect with the promise of revealing vital secrets to the CIA. With suspicions of a mole on the west side of the wall, the US has no choice but to play ball. Admiral Jim Greer has no hesitation bringing in Jack Ryan and Mary Pat Foley to validate the claims and extract the defector right under the nose of the Stasi. Always one to hedge his bets and protect his assets, Greer dispatches John Clark to cover the duo as they look to complete their mission. Unfortunately for Ryan and Foley, their intended jaunt into the East is leaked before their arrival and the Ministry for State Security is waiting for them. Clark, arguably the most lethal man alive, is forced into playing the “fixer” role from the shadows when the situation calls for it.

While Foley and Ryan are battling against the bitter cold in Europe, the Nevada desert is heating up after a highly secretive aircraft unexpectedly crashes. A deep cover East German operative tasked with surveillance of the nearby airfields is one of the first to the scene, absconding with a piece of the radar shielding technology that may turn the war from cold to hot.

I’m not sure if Red Winter is a one off, but I certainly hope not. With the Jack Ryan Jr. series in great hands and being able to continue present day adventures, the idea of revisiting some of our long time favorite Clancy-verse characters in their prime sounds absolutely amazing. The ability to look back on history with modern eyes and explore previously unknown exploits of the time should provide an unlimited number of potential stories. And even if this is a one off, we’re the better for it. Marc Cameron has thrown his hat in the ring for book of the year with this late entry.

Tom Clancy: Red Winter by Marc Cameron is a worthy adventure around the early experiences of Jack Ryan.

Taking place after the original author’s Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games, Jack this time is embroiled in a situation having to do with a Russian who wants to defect as well as the young new worker in the American embassy behind the Berlin Wall. For a change of location, a separate plot line takes plane in Nevada a chase ensues for a spy who steals a part from the crash scene of a test plane.

With other characters who return from other adventures, including John Clark Tom Clancy: Red Winter is a fast paced story that never lets up. With all of the intrigue, action and tension a Clancy reader hopes for in a Ryan novel, this one does not disappoint.

If you like military/spy adventures Tom Clancy: Red Winter will not let you down. This novel serves the Tom Clancy name well.

Flashback to 1985 to a younger Mary Pat Foley and a young Jack Ryan Sr.
A crowd of UFO watchers on a hillside near Area 51.
A F-117 Nighthawk in a flaming crash in the Nevada desert near Area 51.
Secrets lay burning on the desert floor.
In East Berlin an offer to defect in exchange for government secrets.
Admiral Greer needs to send his best to East Berlin – Mary Pay and young Jack.
What happens when all of these things collide?

Red Winter happens.

This novel took me back to the original Tom Clancy books. Jack Ryan is involved in an early career episode behind enemy lines. The action was fast paced and exciting. Great book!

Marc Cameron takes Jack Ryan back to the height of the Cold War in Red Winter, the 34th overall book in the Jack Ryan Universe and sixth by Cameron, chronologically set just after Patriot Games and The Hunt for Red October. I believe the last time we were this early in Jack's career as a newbie CIA analyst was for Clancy's own forgettable Red Rabbit, back in 2002. Thankfully, Red Winter fares much better than that book, on first impression.

While Clancy cut his teeth on Cold War stories, the real world moved much faster than his publishing plans, so we didn't actually get very many Jack Ryan books sets in this era. Moving backward in time is a smart move by Cameron, and also avoids the natural question of just how long we can keep Ryan as President of the United States in the contemporary setting. Granted, Clancy books have always played fast and loose with its own interior timeline, but publishing wise, we've had roughly 13 years of President Ryan since the franchise was resurrected with 2010's Dead or Alive. Eventually he has to leave office, right? Presuming the authors stay true to character and don't betray Ryan's legacy by turning him into some kind of Trumpian, power-mad, ape-like figure who launches an insurrection against his own government all of a sudden, or turn him into some kind of action hero cum cartoon parody a la Mitch Rapp, at least...

But back in 1985, Ryan was still a green recruit and looked at poorly by the higher-ups on the seventh floor as being nothing more than a wet behind the ears academic. James Greer knows better, though, and goddamn is it ever nice to have this old chap back on the page again. I've missed Greer and hope, if we're lucky enough to get more prequel books out of Cameron, that he finds a way to bring Jack's buddy Robby Jackson back, too. The Air Force is running secret test runs on its new stealth technology over the skies of Nevada, prompting speculation and conspiracy theories galore by UFO enthusiasts. When the jet crashes, it's a golden opportunity for Garit Richter, a Stasi spy in America, to steal a piece of new tech to sneak back home. Meanwhile, the CIA has received word of a potential defector in East Berlin. Jack and Mary Pat Foley are dispatched to handle the case, secretly protected by John Clark.

Red Winter is, ultimately, a pretty simplistic storyline, but Cameron does a slick job of making it seem more complicated than it really is thanks to a handful of interpersonal kinks. We've got some domestic drama from a housefrau forced into an affair with a Stasi officer, the FBI's search for a murderous foreign agent in the Nevada mountains, and a mole in the West Berlin office out to upend everything. It's a fun read and fits neatly in the Clancy style, even if it does feel quite a lot more streamlined than Clancy's own works of this period, plus it's just fun to be back in that prime era of the Clancy timeline.

Although I didn't begin reading Clancy until the late '90s, I remember watching the fall of the Berlin Wall on television as a kid. Red Winter captures the paranoia of the '80s Cold War well and, given how long it's been since we've seen Jack as such a young CIA recruit, there's a certain freshness to it, as well. I certainly wouldn't mind it if the Clancy Estate authors decided to take an extended hiatus in the past and worked to fill in some of the gaps, turning the elder Ryan's half of the franchise into some historical Cold War fiction, at least for a little while.

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Group-Putnam Publisher and Marc Cameron for the opportunity to read this ARC of RED WINTER, a Tom Clancy novel.
CLASSIC CLANCY! Grabs your attention from the start and holds it throughout. Fast read. All our friends are there: Admiral Greer, Mary Pat, Jack Ryan and John Clark. This would be a great movie!

Excellent read. I have always loved the Jack Ryan books. Once again, Marc Cameron has taken Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan and has done this story justice. I am definitely giving this five stars.

Marc Cameron has done an admirable job on this installment and I think Tom Clancy fans will be very happy. The book starts off with a defection at a McDonald's and immediately dives into the Ryan family earlier than we have met them before.. Even seasoned readers may find themselves referring back to the Principal Characters List at the beginning of this book . This book keeps you thinking and involved until the last page.


Thanks to NetGalley, Marc Cameron, and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.