Locked On

A Jack Ryan Novel

By: Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney

Narrated by: Lou Diamond Phillips

Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Jack Ryan Jr.--along with the covert warriors of the Campus--continues to uphold his legendary father’s legacy of courage and honor in this thriller from number one New York Times bestselling author Tom Clancy.

Privately training with special forces, he’s honing his combat skills to continue his work within the Campus, hunting down and eliminating terrorists wherever he can--even as Jack Ryan Sr. campaigns to become President of the United States again.

But what neither father nor son knows is that the political and personal have just become equally dangerous. A devout enemy of Jack Sr. launches a privately-funded vendetta to discredit him and connect him to a mysterious killing in his longtime ally John Clark’s past. All they have to do is catch him.

With Clark on the run, it’s up to Jack Jr. to stop a growing threat emerging in the Middle East, where a corrupt Pakistani general has entered into a deadly pact with a fanatical terrorist to procure four nuclear warheads they can use to blackmail any world power into submission--or face annihilation.

©2011 Rubicon, Inc. (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Not One Of Clancy's best

What did you like best about Locked On? What did you like least?

Some of the Reviewers Were Turned off by the Politics. I Did Not Find That Aspect of the Book All That Far out but This May Be Colored by My Somewhat Conservative Mindset. I Found the Entire First Half of the Book Almost Incomprehensible. The Back Stories Were Painfully Long and Detailed, Introducing a Myriad of Characters and Locations Which Were Unpronounceable and Impossible to Remember. One Never Knew When One of These Characters from the Back Story Was Going to Turn out to Be Important to the Plot. I Realize That Middle Eastern Radicals Are Not Likely to Have Names like "Bob" or "Jim" but the Names and Locations Were Almost Impossible to Follow. When an Action Sequence Interrupted, Half the Time I Wasn't Sure Who the Good Guys Were and Who the Bad Guys Were. Perhaps This Would Have Been a Little Bit Easier to Follow in the Print Version but I Doubt It. If You Are the Type of Listener That Prefers to "Skim" the Storyline and Not Really Follow It Closely, This May Not Bother You. The Second Half of the Book Was Much Easier to Follow and Made A Lot More Sense.
As Usual, Lou Diamond Phillips's Narration Was Brilliant. He Is Able to Negotiate the Tongue Twister Names without Difficulty and the Various Character Portrayals Are Distinct Enough That You Can Pretty Much Tell Who Is Speaking without Being Told. I Have Started Selecting Clancy Books, Not by the Plot but Rather by Whether Mr. Phillips Is the Narrator. Overall, I Would Have To Say It Is a Worthwhile Read but If You Are Trying to Decide between This Book and Another Clancy Novel, Choose the Other One.

What does Lou Diamond Phillips bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The performance was the best part of the story.

Not a real Tom Clancy

I read and loved some of Clancy’s early books. This was a poor imitation with many jumbled characters, organizations, and settings.

Outstanding

Nicely done. Great character adaptation.
Good clarity and pronunciation. Looking forward to completing more novels.

Good listen for a credit, smart - high action

Any additional comments?

The Jack Ryan series has be out there so long, I was curious to see how this book would evolve the characters, especially Jack Jr. It was well worth the credit. LDP does a good job narrating and giving the book additional life.

amazing

Fifteen words.
AMAZING. detailing. a lot of action. narrator made it seem that you were there in the story. and the book made it feel real

A good read .....

What did you love best about Locked On?

This is my very first time reading Tom Clancy book; for this reason I cannot say I am a fan of Mr. Clancy’s books. I took this one because of all the good reviews I read and thought well; maybe I should give it a try!Locked on is basically standard terrorism thriller with a very complex plot. Let me first warn you if you have never read Tom Clancy’s book, please don’t start with this one as most the characters are introduced without background and from what I understood most of them come from Clancy previous books. The book has several plots and subplots, there’s a plot by a rogue Pakistani general to destroy the Pakistani civilian government so he can take control; there's a plot to destroy Moscow with a nuclear weapon; and there's a plot by a weakened Democratic president named Kealty to undermine Jack Sr.'s campaign in the last weeks before the election because of these many plots, the book began a little slowly. It was a bit hard to understand the connection between different characters at the beginning. There's even a romance plotline that portrays Jack Ryan Jr. showing some interest towards a smart, beautiful CIA operative named Melanie. Each plotline contains several pages where various actions, scene are described. All characters are scattered on different mission in different parts of the world. One or two characters are based in Pakistan, some in Russia, some in Germany, some in France. There is so much going on at the same time. For you to enjoy it will really depend on how you come to it: if you are a committed Clancy/Ryan’s fan, you'll probably be keen on reading it but slightly wary given the recent books. If you are new to Clancy, and thinking of starting (and I encourage you to do), this is not the place to start, read them in publications order. If you are interested in a modern techno-thriller, this is OK but there are better in the genre.I have been told that this book is a typical Clancy, multi-layered, densely plotted style. In overall Locked On is well written and structured book. I do recommend it for Clancy’s fans and to those who like complex and action driven books.

as always, a great book. could not put it down.

I travel a lot and love to listen to great books. this book was great, maybe too good, as i could not put it down.

look forward to my next long trip and my next book on Jack Ryan.

Jumping around and losing details

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was fine but I sometimes lost concentration and when I started listening again the book had switch characters and story and I didn't really know where I were.

Would you be willing to try another book from Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney ? Why or why not?

Of course, this was my third book by Mark Greaney and I will start on a new one later today.

Which scene was your favorite?

I like the "family"-scenes with the Ryan family.

Ok if you like that type of thing

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

A commercial shoot-em-up thiller with a body count in the thousands and an f-bomb count to match. The highlight was the narration by Lou Diamond Phillips, which was superb.

Would you ever listen to anything by Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney again?

No.

What does Lou Diamond Phillips bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Excellent narration

Was Locked On worth the listening time?

It will appeal to some people.

Another amazing one from Tom Clancy

Another amazing book from Tom Clancy. After listening to this one, I'm wishing that the next one will be out soon -- I won't spoil it but there's a cliff-hanger at the end that's leaving me wisihing the next one was already out. Definately a must-"read"