Op-Center

June 1, 1995
YA-A terrorist bomb explodes at a celebration outside the Palace in Seoul, South Korea, with hundreds of casualties. Was it planted by angry North Koreans? Anti-reunification South Koreans? Or one group posing as the other to shift blame? Will the U.S. go in to help an ally? Speedy and efficient answers must be provided through a new U.S. intelligence agency under the direction of Paul Hood. Shorter than many other Clancy novels, Op-Center is action-packed and less violent than Without Remorse (Putnam, 1993). Brief chapters relate each event in the 41 hours during the international crisis and shift quickly to many locales. Readers must remember under what circumstances they last saw each person and must be able to keep the Korean names straight. The author is a master at providing a past and a personality for the main characters in a few words. The others come alive through their actions. The intricate climax shows that neither side is all good or all bad: cooperation is needed to keep peace. Sure to be popular, especially when the television movie airs.-Claudia Moore, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA

March 18, 2019
In Rovin’s exciting sixth entry in the thriller series created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik (after 2018’s For Honor), President Wyatt Midkiff disbands the Op-Center because its director, Chase Williams, and his staff failed to anticipate a major terrorist act, the bombing of Manhattan’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Williams gets a chance to redeem himself by heading the effort to track down the mastermind behind the attack, Ahmed Salehi, of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. Williams commands a new secret team—Black-ops Wartime Accelerated Strike Placement—consisting of Lt. Grace Lee of the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command, a martial arts master who specializes in deadly knife-work; Marine Lance Corporal Jaz Rivette, a sharpshooter; and Maj. Hamilton Breem, a criminologist and member of the JAG Corps. Various terrorist organizations help Salehi as he goes on the run, but the members of the Black Wasp team catch up with him in Aden, Yemen, in a satisfying showdown. Military action fans will be rewarded. Agent: Mel Berger, WME.

May 4, 2020
The crash of an airliner, whose passengers were coughing up blood, onto the rocky shore of a largely uninhabited island off the coast of South Africa kick-starts Rovin’s solid seventh entry in the series created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik (after 2019’s Sting of the Wasp). In Fort Belvoir, Va., former Op-Center director Chase Williams, who’s settling into his new job at the Defense Logistics Agency, the largest hub of black ops in the federal government, investigates the mystery of the downed jet and discovers a biological agent was involved. A toxin created years before was buried on the island and has recently been released. The race is then on to find and collect this weapon of mass destruction. The Chinese are first in line, and Williams sends in a team to stop them. Meanwhile, thieves have already collected a couple of the vials of the deadly toxin and set out to use them for their own nefarious purposes. Rovin capably orchestrates all the players en route to the explosive climax. The faraway location adds an extra dimension to the somewhat tired bio-terror plot. Tom Clancy fans will have no reason to complain. Agent: Mel Berger, WME.

April 12, 2021
Rovin’s lackluster eighth entry in the series created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik (after 2020’s God of War) pits the covert Black Wasp team headed by Adm. Chase Williams against an unimpressive cabal of villains. When a retired Navy captain working as a consultant for the Office of Naval Intelligence is murdered, his killers have a message for his wife to relay to her husband’s employers: “The war has begun.” A mysterious organization known as the Black Order has broken into the ONI’s security system, and Williams and his team set out to identify and neutralize its members. Burton Stroud, a former Army Ranger, emerges as the Black Order’s mastermind. Stroud is angry about the rise of the Occupy movement, antifa, illegal immigration, left-wing violence, and now the recent election of a new progressive president. The seven Black Order members are all proficient terrorists, and their attacks on civilians are bloody, but because of their small number, overly familiar right-wing goals, and clichéd motivations, they never come into focus as a credible threat. This one’s for series fans only. Agent, Mel Berger, WME.