Summary of "The Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy

    

Cover of The Hunt For Red October

     The book The Hunt For Red October is a thrilling spy novel that takes place in the Atlantic Ocean during December 1984. Captain Marko Ramius is the best naval captain in the whole of the Soviet Union. The Soviet navy has just put him in control of their newest and most advanced nuclear submarine, "Red October". After setting sail on the sub's maiden voyage, Ramius kills the political officer, Ivan Putin (Which made me laugh because the current President of Russia is Vladimir Putin). He then switches the sub's original orders to his own, which call for the ship to engage it's "caterpillar drive", a jet-propulsion system that is so quite, the sub doesn't show up on sonar. What most of the crew on board "Red October" don't know is that Ramius plans to defect to the United States. So the USSR sends a large chunk of their naval fleet to hunt down and destroy "Red October" before Ramius defects and hands the sub over to the Americans. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst, is put in charge of finding out what Ramius's plans really are, as they do not know Ramius's intentions. After all, a gigantic nuclear sub equipped with twenty nuclear missles chugging towards the American coast is kind of a cause for alarm. The story all so follows Jones, a sonar operator and his commander, Bart Mancuso, on the USS Dallas, who decipher the sound of "Red October's caterpillar drive off of Iceland. These three groups eventually meet in the climax.

     I remember my father saying a few weeks ago to my grandpa, "I'm happy Tim Clancy died!" I asked why. He replied that Clancy's books were too long and were a pain to read. This book was no longer than one of the medium-length Harry Potter books. I give the book a 4 and a half out of five stars. I find military history fascinating, and this book is perfect for people who love military history, thrillers, spy novels. The actual difficulty of read was probably an eight, as there is alot of Russian words in English lettering, but you still don't know what they mean. But still, it is a great book and I plan on reading as many Tom Clancy books as I can this year.

The Hunt For Red October Trailer:

http://youtu.be/3C2tE7vjdHk

The video above is the trailer for the 1990 movie version of The Hunt For Red October. It stars Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan (A roll that would later be filled by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck). It also stars Sean Connery (in probably one of the greatest casting decisions ever, despite his awful Russian accent) as Marko Ramius