Red Rabbit
| Written by: | Tom Clancy |
|---|---|
| Central Theme: | |
| Synopsis: | Jack Ryan, a new CIA analyst, must assist in locating a Soviet defector with information about a KGB plot to assassinate The Pope. |
| Series: | Jack Ryan |
| Preceded by: | Patriot Games |
| Followed by: | The Hunt for Red October (novel) |
| First published: | August 5, 2002 |
Late entry into the Jack Ryanverse of Tom Clancy. Several parts of the story are ripped from the headlines, as the McGuffin is the plan to assassinate Pope John Paul II.
The protagonist is a KGB head clerk in the communications department at headquarters in Dzherzinsky Square. He gets qualms about some of the messages he has to encode, he has issues with the way the country is being run and he wants out. The story is how he gets to the other side.
Tropes used in Red Rabbit include:
- Broad Strokes: The entire book has serious issues lining up with future ones in the universe timeline, so any facts from one or the other that conflict have to be discarded or ignored for it to fit into the canon. A later published book flashback explicitly follows up on events from this book, but does so in such a way no canon inconsistency is introduced.
- Faking the Dead: Pulled off twice. The first is used to cover up a defection by swapping dead bodies charred beyond recognition into a scene where the defected were supposed to be to fool anyone looking into the deaths. The second is a variant, where a real person dies, but is disguised to look like something else, specifically, the British government killed a Soviet agent and deliberately staged it to look like a suicide.
- False-Flag Operation: In a humourous take on this trope that is also plot important, Zaitsev asks the Americans prove their willingness to help by hoisting the American flag up the wrong way, which only they could pull off and which only he would know was done on purpose, showing they would be willing to help him in good faith.
- Historical Domain Character: Quite a few of the real people who were in the Soviet Politburo are major characters, Yuriy Andropov especially.
- Interquel: Takes place between Patriot Games and The Hunt for Red October.
- Plot Hole: Fairly major one actually. The unnamed President is obviously Reagan, but since this book is set between Patriot Games and The Hunt For Red October where a President who is obviously not Reagan is in office, it basically calls into question if the book can be considered canon. Also, on a more minor note, Ryan remarks in The Sum Of All Fears that it was his first time visiting Rome, but he visited Rome in Red Rabbit, which is set several years before.
- He also remarks he never met a defector prior to encountering Ramius in The Hunt for Red October, but this does not mesh with this book, where he meets one beforehand.