'Tiger' dependent on series

Tom Clancy just never quits, but he probably had a quandary when he decided to write yet another novel focused on the enterprising Ryan family. Jack Ryan has been the driving character in many of Clancy's classics, including "The Hunt for Red October" and "Patriot Games." He's got to be getting on in years. But hey, he's had a good run, rising from a Marine with a bad back to the commander in chief.\nBut President Ryan is retired now and writing his memoirs and Clancy needs a new protagonist. In the case of "The Teeth of the Tiger," he has three. The latest addition to the library of Clancy writings follows the exploits of Jack Ryan Jr., the son of the revered Ryan Sr. and Dominic and Brian Caruso, the cousins of the younger Ryan.\n"The Teeth of the Tiger" introduces the Campus, a secret government agency working under the cover of Hendley Associates. The legitimate side of the agency does a profitable business in international stocks and currency exchange. Interesting, maybe, but the fascinating side of the Campus is the behind-the-scenes work.\nTerrorism leaves a trail of money; this is the basic tenet of the Campus. Analysts follow the cash trails of known terrorism financiers to learn the identities of the foot soldiers. This is the sector of the Campus that the younger Ryan works in, tracking the soft money a wealthy Saudi expatriate uses to fund violent militants. This is the cleaner side of the Campus. Jack Jr.'s cousins are the start of the dirty side.\nDominic and Brian have been retained by the Campus as hired assassins. Dominic came to the attention of the Campus after resolving a particularly violent kidnapping turned murder as an FBI agent. Brian is a Marine whose expertise in Afghanistan marked him as a man on the rise. Both were recruited by the Campus to train as the first assassins; their targets were to be terrorists flushed out by the analysts. \nPitted against the United States is a man known only as Mohammed. This man controls a terror network spanning the Middle East and Europe. With the assistance of his new allies, the drug lords of Columbia, he manages to smuggle in dozens of operatives through Mexico. Once in the United States, the terrorists stage attacks on the suburban malls of America. Killing dozens of civilians in the midst of their daily lives, they arouse the anger of the world.\nIt is in this environment that the team of Dominic, Brian and Jack Jr., go to Europe in the hopes of eliminating some of the operatives of the elusive Mohammed. The team is unstoppable in Europe and ends up eliminating their foe Mohammed on the streets of Rome.\nWhile thoroughly implausible, "The Teeth of the Tiger" is a good yarn at times. However, don't pick up this book without reading the other books in the Jack Ryan series. The stories are incredibly interdependent on each other and a novitiate to Clancy's writing would probably be thoroughly lost in the twists, turns and character relationships. \nBut if you've read the rest, pick up "Teeth of the Tiger." If you haven't, pass it up for another book.