It still holds up after 15 years. I can re read this book over and over and still love it.

I read through this book in a zip!

its a fantastic piece of work

I've been into audio books for about two years now. I drive 32 miles to and from work each day. Without Remorse is one I have been wanting. I read the book many years ago, and to listen to the book while driving to and from work was great while driving made the book even better. To me Tom Clancy will go down in history as one of the classic writers.

Byron

First thing, ignore the professional reviewer's naked bias.

Now, John Kelly transforms into CIA legend Mr. Clark in this unrelenting page turner. For me, this is the strongest and most dynamic novel in Clancy's quasi-series involving Jack Ryan et.al. Clark, one of the previously minor recurring characters, comes alive with a "vengeance" here. This novel is equal parts background psychological motivation and unparalleled action and suspense.

Reminiscent of Death Wish, only with less hand wringing, vigilante justice is meted out as the title indicates- without remorse- in response to pernicious, pervasive lawlessness. As with another 70s classic, Dirty Harry, civil liberties are cast aside by the former Navy seal in an attempt to right the wrongs of a society in chaos. Far from recoiling in horror as a few reviewers indicated, I found this novel inspirational.

My advice, for what its worth, is to judge this through the prism of the reality presented in the entire "Jack Ryan' series. Thus, Clark's motivation is explained, and you can identify or empathize with him or not. This is not an overtly political or a "how-to" book. I recommend this novel both singularly and as one segment of the series, preferably the later.

As a youngster, I read and enjoyed Red Storm Rising, Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Cardinal of the Kremlin. (I thought that Sum of All Fears was pushing it.) But Without Remorse is quite another story. Here Clancy reveals himself to be a real facist. Certainly the victims of Kelly/Clark's rage are not innocents, but they are pointless executed, and the book doesn't even take the time to explore the effect that this has on Clark or really give him any kind of depth. In Lethal Weapon, we only know that Riggs's wife is dead, this alone is enough to make him suicidal and add considerable depth to his character. In Without Remorse, the love interest's death is only exploited to give Clark an excuse to kill everyone. I found Clancy's obvious animus towards liberals and women distasteful and his lack of respect for human life and even a sense of the impact that taking another person's life has on your own--well, it is truely baffling to consider how a man who is marginally an intellectual can be that primative. He falls short even of the mark that his other novels set. One is better off with any of his previous works, especially Clear and Present Danger or Cardinal of the Kremlin.