Political Thriller Novels - The Hunt For Red October

Tom Clancy's Finest?

Definitely, for me. The book that Reagan read - maybe the only one? I don't know, but this is a master expostion of the techno-thriller. Certainly, for most afficionados of thriller novels, this ranks up there with Day of the Jackal, and made Jack Ryan a household name (well almost). It was the foundation of the Jack Ryan franchise - with novels like Patriot Games and a host of others which followed. Political? Action? Techno? This crosses all the sub-genre boundaries.

The great thing about this book is that the reader really feels that he/she is learning about top secret technology; there is a great deal of factual matter in there. In reality, though, the technology was quite old even when written about. Joe Public learns about these things ten years after they were built. The film, with Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin and James Earl Jones, was an Oscar Winner in 1990 for 'Die Hard' director John McTiernan. Of course, Harrison Ford took over as Jack Ryan in the later films of the franchise.