Jack Ryan · Book 3
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
- Published
- 1 January 1988
- Pages
- 543
- ISBN-13
- 9780399133459
- Type
- novel
About this book
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988) is Clancy's follow-up to Patriot Games, running 543 pages and continuing the Cold War-era intelligence plotting -- real tradecraft, real geopolitics -- that made the early Ryan novels feel like insider briefings rather than pulp thrillers.
Its place in Jack Ryan
The Cardinal of the Kremlin is book 3 in the Jack Ryan series. It follows Patriot Games. It is followed by Clear and Present Danger. See the full Jack Ryan reading order.
Jack Ryan starts the series as a CIA analyst who stumbles into a Soviet submarine defection and rises, book by book, to national security adviser and eventually President of the United States — one of the most sustained "ordinary competent man in extraordinary circumstances" arcs in thriller fiction. Tom Clancy built his name on techno-thriller density: real weapons systems, real geopolitics, and enough procedural detail about submarines, fighter jets and intelligence tradecraft that the books doubled as…
Editions
- edition · unknown publisher · — · ISBN 9780399133459