The Cardinal of the Kremlin

Jack Ryan, Book 4

By: Tom Clancy

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 25 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

In the Soviet hills of Dushanbe near the Afghanistan border, an otherworldly array of pillars and domes rises into the night. Between the USA and the Soviet Union, no contest is more urgent than the race to build the first missile defense system, and no one knows that more than the two men charged with assessing the Soviet's capabilities: Colonel Mikhail Filitov of the Soviet Union, an old-line warrior distrusted by the army's new inner circle of technocrats, and CIA analyst Jack Ryan, hero of the Red October affair. Each must use all his craft to arrive at the truth, but Filitov gets there first? And that's when all hell breaks loose. Because Filitov, code-named Cardinal, is America's highest agent in the Kremlin, and he is about to be betrayed to the KGB. His rescue could spell the difference between peace and war, and it is up to Jack Ryan to accomplish it.

©1988 Jack Ryan Enterprises Ltd. (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"Heart-stopping action...entertaining and eminently topical." ( The Washington Post)

"[Clancy] constantly taps the current world situation for its imminent dangers and spins them into an engrossing tale." ( The New York Times Book Review)

" Cardinal excites, illuminates... A great listen." ( Los Angeles Daily News)

Double Agents and defections

What made the experience of listening to The Cardinal of the Kremlin the most enjoyable?

Tom Clancy's writing is well researched and the scope of the story is incredible especially with many twists and turns the story takes.

What did you like best about this story?

The double agent Cardinal. The character's bravery in the face of execution was a brilliant concept.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I really felt for Cardinal when he passed away shortly after his rescue and defection to the United States.

A great counter-intelligence story

This is my first foray into a Tom Clancy novel. I love the films based on his books, but until now, never thought I had the patience to sit through the written work. This one is a great read in terms of characters and story.

The major story centres around Cardinal, a Soviet double agent working to sneak secrets out of Russia to the CIA. There is also a plot that sees the USA and the USSR racing to complete their versions of a laser defence system. There are a lot of characters in the book, but they are all fully fleshed out and realised. Surprisingly, Jack Ryan himself takes a backseat for much of the story. As the title suggests, the book focuses a lot on Cardinal, and luckily he is a very likable character.

Now to the narration. One of the reasons I was hesitant to listen to the audio versions was that I had heard that Michael Prichard's narration was flat and boring. It is to an extent, but it wasn't bad enough that I had to stop listening. He doesn't have any range as a actor for different characters and when he does try to do different voices, he seems to just give up after about one sentence. The book would definitely have been better with an actual voice actor, but it was tolerable.