NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Clancy, whose high-tech, Cold War thrillers such as The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games made him the most widely read and influential military novelist of his time, has died. He was 66.
Penguin Group (USA) announced that Clancy had died yesterday in Baltimore. The publisher did not provide a cause of death.
Tall and thin, with round, sunken eyes that were often hidden by sunglasses, Clancy had said his dream had been simply to publish a book, hopefully a good one, so that he would be in the Library of Congress catalog. His dreams were answered many times over.
His novels were dependable best sellers, with his publisher estimating that worldwide sales top 100 million copies. Several, including The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, were later made into blockbuster movies, with another based on his desk-jockey CIA hero, “Jack Ryan,” set for release on Christmas.
Clancy was admired in the military community, and appeared — though he often denied it — to have the kind of access that enabled him to intricately describe anything from surveillance to the operations of a submarine. He often played off — and sometimes anticipated — world events, as in the pre-Sept. 11, 2011 paranoid thriller “Debt of Honor,” in which a jumbo jet destroys the U.S. Capitol during a joint meeting of Congress.
Earning million-dollar advances for his novels, he also wrote nonfiction works on the military and even ventured into video games.
