Tom Clancy created one of the most memorable literary characters in “The Hunt For Red October.” Clancy began the long road of Jack Ryan with this book and would take him all the way to the presidency and beyond.

In “The Hunt For Red October,” we are introduced to Ryan, a CIA analyst, who is tasked with finding the defecting Soviet submarine captain Marko Alexandrovich Ramius as he escapes from the Russians in a top secret Typhoon class submarine Red October.

The submarine has a prototype Caterpiller drive that makes it difficult to find using sonar and could potentially sneak up to American soil and launch a nuclear attack. The rest of the book details a game of cat and mouse between the Soviet Union, United States and Ramius.The book was originally published by U.S. Naval Institute Press as their first piece of fiction.

The book was a commercial success and spawned many more, most featuring Jack Ryan as he moves his way up the administrative chain of command. Alec Baldwin played Ryan in the film version of “The Hunt For Red October,” but was replaced with Harrison Ford in “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.” The final film had Ben Affleck as Ryan in “The Sum of All Fears”

As someone who has read many of the books, its interesting to see how Ryan started and how he would eventually evolve into a major power player. This is definately one of the best of the Jack Ryan Series.