Command Authority (Penguin Books)

Command Authority sees the return of Tom Clancy's greatest hero, Jack Ryan. Decades ago, when he was a young CIA analyst, President Jack Ryan, Sr. Was sent on what was supposed to be a simple support mission to investigate the death of an operative who had been looking into suspicious banking activities at a Swiss bank.

Ryan's dogged tenacity uncovered not only financial deceit, but also the existence of a KGB assassin, code-named Zenith. He was never able to find the killer. But in the shadowy world of covert operations, nothing stays hidden forever.

In the present, a new strongman has emerged in the ever-chaotic Russian republic - the enigmatic President Valeri Volodin. His rise to power was meteoric, but shrouded in deception and treachery. The foundations of his personal empire are built on a bloody secret from his past, and he will eliminate anyone who comes close to that truth.

For he has set in motion a plot to return Russia to its former glory and might, with the rest of the world once again trembling in fear of the mighty Bear. When an old friend of the Ryans is poisoned żeby a radioactive agent, the trail leads to Russia.

And Jack Ryan, Jr.- aided aby his compatriots John Clark and the covert warriors of the secretive Campus - must delve into an international conflict thirty years in the making, and finish what his father started.

With President Ryan fighting a desperate campaign to thwart Russian aggression, and his son fighting a silent war against a ruthless foe, the chances for global conflict grow ever greater - and the possibility of survival may soon be lost for all...Tom Clancy's Command Authority is a brand new full-throttle all-action adventure, and follows Threat Vector and Locked On as the newest Jack Ryan novel.

Praise for Tom Clancy: "Exhilarating. No other novelist is giving so full a picture of modern conflict". (Sunday Times). "The inventor of the techno-thriller". (Daily Telegraph). Thirty years ago Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history.

Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore's Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted on to the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it 'the perfect yarn'.From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense.

He passed away in October 2013. Mark Greaney has a degree in international relations and political science and is pursuing his master's in intelligence studies with a concentration in criminal intelligence.

He is the author of The Gray Man, On Target, and Ballistic.