“Patriot Games” is a clear-cut thriller with a personal core, its heroes and villains kept firmly apart. A single act of courage in London turns Jack Ryan’s own family into a terrorist target; the action is laid out clearly, and some readers call the tone sentimental and like it for that. Others consider the book slow and predictable. Chronologically the first Jack Ryan story, it is a natural place to begin the series.

The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.

About the book

Patriot Games is a thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and published on July 2, 1987. A prequel to The Hunt for Red October (1984), it is chronologically the first book featuring Jack Ryan, the main character in Clancy's Ryanverse. The novel focuses on Ryan being the target of an Irish terrorist group after he foils their kidnapping attempt on the Prince and Princess of Wales in London. It debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. A film adaptation, starring Harrison Ford as Ryan, premiered on June 5, 1992.

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Reading order · Ryanverse

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Where the score comes from

The sources average 7.7 across 324 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 69% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Thriller average of 7.6. That is how 7.6 comes out.