Thriller Author Tom Clancy Dead at 66

Beloved thriller author and Baltimore Orioles co-owner Tom Clancy is dead. Clancy died yesterday in a Baltimore hospital after a brief illness. He was 66.

Clancy was known for technically detailed thrillers dealing with the aftermath of the cold war. Over 100 million copies of Clancy’s novels are in print. According to The New York Times, Clancy was an insurance salesman when he wrote his first novel, The Hunt for Red October, in the mid-1980s. He sold it to the Naval Institute Press for $5000:

That publisher had never released a novel before, but the editors were taken with Mr. Clancy’s manuscript. They were concerned, however, that there were too many technical descriptions, so they asked him to make cuts. Mr. Clancy made revisions and cut at least 100 pages.

The book took off when President Ronald Reagan, who had received a copy, called it “my kind of yarn” and said that he couldn’t put it down.

After the book’s publication in 1985, Mr. Clancy was praised for his mastery of technical details about Soviet submarines and weaponry. Even high-ranking members of the military took notice of the book’s apparent inside knowledge.

In an interview in 1986, Mr. Clancy said, “When I met Navy Secretary John Lehman last year, the first thing he asked me about the book was, ‘Who the hell cleared it?’ “
David Shanks, a Penguin executive who worked with Mr. Clancy for decades, called him “a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and one of the most visionary storytellers of our time.”

What will presumably by the final Jack Ryan book, Command Authority, Clancy’s 17th novel, is due to be published this coming December. Written with Mark Greaney, the story features former CIA agent and president Jack Ryan and his son Jack Ryan Jr.