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Tom Clancy Weapons Grade (A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel) Hardcover – September 5, 2023
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The quiet of a Texas night is shattered by the sounds of screeching brakes, crumpling metal and, most shockingly, rapid gunfire. The auto accident Jack Ryan Jr thought he witnessed turned out to be a professional hit. Jack may be too late to save the victim, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to let the hitters escape justice.
He’s got just one lead—a meeting the victim was going to. When Jack shows up instead, he’s drawn into the seedy underbelly of a small, Texas town and the cold case of a college student who vanished from its streets.
Jack is left with nothing but questions. Who wants it to look like the victim was drunk? Why does someone want an innocent witness killed? And most of all, what’s a team of South African hitmen doing in the Lone Star State?
His quest for answers will take Jack from a quiet Texas road to the middle of an international conspiracy and may just cost him his life.
- Print length512 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherG.P. Putnam's Sons
- Publication dateSeptember 5, 2023
- Dimensions6.3 x 1.6 x 9.3 inches
- ISBN-100593422813
- ISBN-13978-0593422816
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The most talented author to touch the Ryanverse since Mark Greaney." --The Real Book Spy (featured review)
"Bentley proves himself a worthy successro to Tom Clancy."--Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Don Bentley spent a decade as an Army Apache helicopter pilot, and while deployed in Afghanistan was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal with "V" device for valor. Following his time in the military, Bentley worked as an FBI special agent focusing on foreign intelligence and counterintelligence and was a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team member.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Briar Wood, Texas
The Mustang's headlights cut through the night as Jack Ryan, JR., dropped the six-speed manual transmission into fourth, accelerating through the winding turn. Between the roaring 450-horsepower V8, the wind in his face, and the mild Texas weather, he didn't even try to temper his broad smile. In fact, the only thing making this night drive less than perfect was the empty passenger seat beside him.
As if on cue, his phone rang.
Jack eyed the caller ID on the console, and though he wouldn't have thought it possible a moment ago, his grin somehow grew even wider. Where the caller's contact information had once been a first and last name, the personal details now bore just a single word in all capital letters.
FIANCÉE
Jack liked the sound of that.
"Hey, baby," he said, answering the call as he eased off the gas, allowing the throaty engine noise to drop to a low rumble. Renting a muscle car convertible was a fine way to tool through the Lone Star State, but the ambient noise was hell on phone conversations.
"Hey yourself. I'm lonely. Know anyone who'd want to keep me company?"
Lisanne Robertson's husky voice sent shivers down Jack's spine. His right foot wanted to nudge the accelerator at the thought of the raven-haired beauty sitting alone in their Rainey Street hotel room. But as much as he wanted to free the horses lurking beneath the Mustang's hood, he resisted the urge. Flooring the pedal might get him back to Austin a couple of minutes sooner, but that would be at the expense of listening to his future bride tell him how much she missed him.
Not a trade Jack was willing to make.
"Lisanne Robertson," he said, catching the slight slur in his fiancée's words, "are you tipsy?"
"Get your cute self back here and find out."
This time it wasn't just the engine's RPMs Lisanne's words set racing.
Looking at the Mustang's dashboard clock, Jack did some quick math. He was currently heading west along Highway 79, somewhere in the no-man's land between the tiny towns of Rockdale and Thorndale. While the scenic ranches and farmers' fields had been quite beautiful when he'd made the drive to College Station earlier today, there wasn't much to see this time of the night.
That said, each of the little towns along this stretch of two-lane highway functioned as a de facto speed trap. While Jack could legally do seventy miles an hour on the meandering back road, the speed limit dropped to thirty-five within each city's incorporation limits. Texas cops were both professional and polite, but they were also quite happy to capitalize on the municipal payday offered by lawbreaking out-of-towners. Still, the longer he listened to the raspy words coming from the other end of the line, the more a speeding ticket seemed like a fair bargain if the money meant seeing his future wife that much sooner.
"You told me you weren't drinking tonight," Jack said.
"That was the plan, but Dawn & Hawkes were playing at Karlie's favorite bar, so we went to see them. Karlie may have told the bartender that I'd just gotten engaged, so he tried to buy me shots. I passed."
"But?" Jack said.
"But some college kids tried to pick us up," Lisanne said. "Somehow they didn't see my shiny new ring."
As a former college kid, Jack thought Lisanne might have been giving her would-be suitors far too much credit, but he was enjoying the sound of her voice way too much to interrupt.
"What happened next?" Jack said.
"I told those frat boys that I was waiting for my fiancé."
"How'd that work?" he asked.
"Not well," she said. "They started buying drinks for Karlie instead."
He smiled as he touched the brakes.
Karlie was Karlie Dill-Lisanne's college roommate and still one of her closest friends. After she'd shared the happy news with her parents, Lisanne had called Karlie. Never one to miss an opportunity, Karlie had suggested that Lisanne bring her fiancé to Austin so that she could meet the lucky boy.
While Jack loved traveling, he hadn't been so keen on accompanying Lisanne to a girls' weekend until his future bride had uttered the magic words-Texas A&M football. The Fightin' Aggies were at Kyle Field, and better yet, tickets were still available.
In a quick fit of negotiations that Jack thought boded well for their future nuptials, he and Lisanne had hammered out an agreement. They would fly from D.C. to Austin Sunday morning and rent a room at the famous Van Zandt near Rainey Street. Jack would drive over to College Station for the football game while Lisanne spent Saturday afternoon and evening catching up with Karlie. Jack would return after the night game ended, and they would meet Karlie for lunch on Monday and then grab the evening flight back to D.C.
Simple.
Or maybe not.
"Still haven't heard the part about you getting tipsy," Jack said.
"I'm getting there," Lisanne said. "After Karlie sent the UT kids packing, we were about to call it a night. But the bartender said he was working on a new drink, and he really wanted some feedback. He begged me to try it, Jack."
Jack just bet he had.
Lisanne Robertson had inherited her olive complexion, thick black hair, and deep chocolate eyes from her Lebanese mother. Her American father had bestowed upon her a desire to serve that took the form of a couple of years as an active-duty Marine followed by a stint in law enforcement before coming to the attention of an organization named The Campus. Lisanne's lean, athletic frame reflected her vocation.
So did the fact that she was missing one arm below the elbow.
The bullet that had taken her arm had nearly ended her life. For Lisanne, like Jack, physical fitness was a job requirement, not a hobby.
When he'd left for the football game, Lisanne had been wearing a fitted Longhorns T-shirt and tight jeans that showcased miles of legs. That outfit, coupled with her smile, had been enough to cause Jack to reconsider his sojourn to College Station. Knowing his fiancée, Lisanne had significantly upgraded her wardrobe before hitting the concert with Karlie. Pretty girls certainly weren't scarce in the legion of bars that called Sixth Street home, but Jack thought that Austin wasn't altogether ready for the phenomenon that was Lisanne Robertson.
He sure wasn't.
"What did he make you?" Jack said.
"He called it the McConaughey. It was like a margarita, but spicy. It was so good."
The emphasis Lisanne put on her last two words made Jack chuckle as he wisely refrained from asking just how many of the concoctions she'd sampled before rendering her verdict.
A drink named after Austin's favorite son had to be good.
"Is that why you called?" Jack said. "To rub it in?"
"No," Lisanne said. "I called because I miss you and I'm tipsy. Are you here yet?"
Jack very much wished he was here yet for more reasons than one. If he was being honest, he would have to admit that their weekend of fun was born of more than just a trip to see Karlie. He and Lisanne had come to a relational fork in the road. A fork that led down two very different paths. The weekend in Austin was meant to give them time together to think, and while he was no closer to solving their impasse, he did know one thing-life was much better in Lisanne Robertson's arms.
Unfortunately, the laws of physics cared neither for slightly intoxicated fiancées nor the rumbling of Detroit's finest engine. As much as he wished otherwise, Jack still had a good fifty minutes before he'd be handing the Mustang's keys over to the Van Zandt's valet. If experience was any guide, Lisanne would be fast asleep by then.
He opened his mouth to tell the woman he loved as much, when everything changed.
The crash happened so quickly that Jack almost missed it.
Though he was less than fifty yards from the colliding vehicles, the violence was still hard to follow. The impact quickly morphed into a tangle of metal and a cloud of debris. Like dancers joined at the hip, the two sedans spun from the winding Texas road into the surrounding brush. One moment, the stretch of blacktop had been the scene of crushing metal, skidding tires, and flashing headlights. The next, the two-lane highway was clear, all signs of violence erased from the double yellow lines as if an artist had wiped the entire scene from his slate. Unexpected violence and the chaos accompanying it had a way of confusing the senses and jarring the observer's sense of time.
Especially if the person witnessing it was unaccustomed to such things.
Jack Ryan, Jr., was not such a person.
Even so, it still took a moment or two for his OODA loop to run its course. For his brain to move from one stage to the next. And while Jack was not in a fighter jet's cockpit like the cycle's originator, he was in the driver's seat of a Ford Mustang GT. The car's snarling engine propelled him toward the accident at eighty-eight feet per second. Meaning in the time it took the average person to inhale, he had to process what had just happened and decide on a course of action. Under these harsh time constraints, Jack could have been forgiven for continuing past the wreck as his brain turned sensory inputs into thoughts.
Jack did not continue.
Though he was no more race car driver than fighter pilot, he was a member of a cadre of men and women who were arguably even more elect. This was not the first time Jack's mind had been required to analyze the unexpected and render a series of life-or-death decisions.
Nor would this probably be the last.
But Jack did not dwell on the oddities of his chosen profession any more than he considered what the crash's implications might mean for his already compressed schedule.
Instead, he acted.
Jack downshifted, transforming the engine's growl into a full-fledged roar even as he activated his hazard lights and angled the Mustang toward the shoulder.
"Hey, baby," Jack said, "I've got to go. I just saw a wreck."
"Watch yourself," Lisanne said.
Her previously flirty tone was a thing of the past.
There was a reason for the change.
Like Lisanne, Jack was an operative for an off-the-books intelligence organization known as The Campus. While he and Lisanne were in Austin purely for recreation, The Campus's long and distinguished list of adversaries weren't much for vacations.
"Always do," Jack said.
"Give me a call once you're back on the road," Lisanne said, her voice clear and her diction precise. "I love you."
"Love you too," Jack said.
As he hung up with his future bride, Jack had two thoughts. One, Lisanne wasn't anywhere near as intoxicated as she'd pretended to be. Two, a random car crash on a moonlit highway was not cause for concern for a normal person.
John Patrick Ryan, Jr., was not a normal person.
Chapter 2
Backcountry Texas roads were a treat, especially in a convertible with power to spare and a traffic-free road. Fields of hay and grain were interspersed with wooded lots full of mesquite, live oaks, and cedar. Rolling hills dotted with cattle sat on either side of winding gravel paths that led to ranch houses. Some of the structures were fit for the set of Yellowstone, but most were simple affairs of river stone and wood and had probably been in the same family for generations.
Out here, motorists adhered to an unwritten courtesy that was a far cry from the Darwinian rules of the road followed by commuters in Austin, Houston, or Dallas. Though the highways were single lane for long stretches, people pulled off to the shoulder so that faster traffic could pass them by. But even the most polite driver couldn't dodge a car they couldn't see. And while the country's mild mannerisms and slower pace were delightful, there was nothing mild or slow about a three-thousand-pound mass of steel and plastic striking another at seventy miles per hour.
In a collision of that magnitude, even airbags wouldn't be of much help.
Jack's headlights played across the gravel shoulder as he brought the Mustang to a stop.
A light rain had fallen earlier in the evening and the roads were still slick with a rehydrated slurry of grime, oil, and the dirt and grit that were the typical by-products of vehicular traffic. As a Maryland native, Jack had grown up learning to drive on snowy roads. Accordingly, he'd snickered when a Texas native had warned him about driving in the rain, but Jack's arrogance hadn't lasted long. The black ice that terrorized his fellow northerners had nothing on Texas roads after a rainstorm.
In this case, the slick road had netted at least two victims. Though Jack had been certain the collision was between a pair of vehicles, he couldn't see anything beyond a vehicle-shaped hole in the underbrush lining the side of the road. Based on the way the terrain sloped downward, Jack guessed that a ravine or perhaps a creek lay at the bottom of the embankment.
This was no mere fender bender.
The portion of his brain that understood battlefield calculus suggested that what lay beyond the crushed limbs and broken bushes would rate far more serious than just bruises and bumps. Jack thumbed a button on the steering wheel and instructed the robotic voice that answered to call 911. Though the Mustang was a rental, he had still taken the time to sync his iPhone.
Driving the Texas back roads was a lot of fun.
Navigating them was a different matter.
"Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?"
"I need to report a multiple vehicle accident on Highway 79," Jack said. "I'm about ten miles west of Milano. The accident is on the north side of the road. Both vehicles have disappeared into the brush, and I'm afraid they've tumbled down an embankment."
"I'm dispatching EMS now. If it's safe for you to do so, can you take a look at the crash and describe it for me? I need to know if either vehicle is on fire."
"Just a minute," Jack said.
With the Mustang's top down, he'd elected to squirrel his phone away in the compartment between the front seats. Motoring down a back road with the wind in your face and Parker McCollum on the radio was great until an unexpectedly sharp turn sent your phone tumbling out into space.
Not that this had ever happened to Jack, of course.
But while the sports car's open roof indirectly hindered Jack's ability to reach his phone, it had the opposite effect on his hearing.
Or more precisely, the hearing of an all-too-familiar sound.
Gunfire.
Chapter 3
Jack did not hold an ordinary job.
To be fair, not much about his life was ordinary. His father was President of the United States, and his mother had survived an assassination attempt by the Irish Republican Army. But compared to his career, these abnormalities were but blips on the radar. Jack’s choice of vocations was difficult to describe. He worked for an organization that didn’t officially exist doing things that didn’t officially happen.
As such, he was intimately familiar with both gunfire and the weapons that produced it.
He exited the Mustang and drew the SIG Sauer 365 SAS micro-compact holstered beneath his untucked shirt. While the organization that employed Jack was associated with the US intelligence community, it did not bestow upon its employees the authority to carry guns while traveling on commercial airlines.
That was fine.
Having found himself on the receiving end of ambushes a few too many times, Jack had arrived at a declaration of sorts. Namely, that he would never travel unarmed again. As such, he’d checked his pistol and ammunition with his luggage and reunited with them both in Austin. Some people might have called this practice conspiracy minded.
Those people had never spent a day in Jack Ryan’s shoes.
At six foot two and two hundred and twenty pounds, Jack was not physically insignificant and the hours he’d spent sweating and bleeding in The Campus’s fight house had well equipped him to use the advantages good genes and fierce sessions in the weight room had gifted him.
Even so, only a fool relied on physical prowess to win the day.
A firearm in the hands of a trained shooter always trumped martial prowess.
Jack led with the SIG as he followed the unmistakable tracks from the collision even as he unconsciously characterized two distinct weapon reports. The short pop, pop, pop belonged to a pistol while the deeper, longer barks were made by an assault rifle.
Probably an AK-47.
Product details
- Publisher : G.P. Putnam's Sons (September 5, 2023)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 512 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593422813
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593422816
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.3 x 1.6 x 9.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #87,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #747 in Military Thrillers (Books)
- #1,356 in War Fiction (Books)
- #8,653 in Suspense Thrillers
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Don Bentley is the NYT bestselling author of FORGOTTEN WAR, Tom Clancy WEAPONS GRADE, and Vince Flynn's MITCH RAPP series (2024). Don is a former FBI Special Agent, SWAT Team member, and Army Apache helicopter pilot. Learn more at www.donbentleybooks.com
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the story fun, entertaining, and captivating. They also praise the characters as well-developed and believable. Opinions are mixed on the writing quality, with some finding it riveting and believable, while others say it'scluttered with unnecessary details and dialogue.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the story fun, entertaining, and captivating. They also describe the book as suspenseful and exciting.
"Very well written in Tom Clancy style. Great plot. Filled with action. Hard to put down! Waiting for next one." Read more
"...a convenient list of most of the main characters which was useful as a reference at times when the story jumped from one local set of characters to..." Read more
"...Bentley masterfully crafts this story with intense and powerful action that propels the reader into captivating thrills, unexpected chills, and..." Read more
"...Each layer has its own story ,heroes, and pulse tempo. They all con tribute to the final delivery of a masterpiece of a delicious read." Read more
Customers find the characters well-developed and believable. They also appreciate the strong hero and supporting cast.
"...At the beginning of the book there is a convenient list of most of the main characters which was useful as a reference at times when the story..." Read more
"...Don Bentley knows how to craft a great thriller and I could not put it down." Read more
"...and the action is not only first rate, but it sets up some additional characters for the series to continue, or spin off..." Read more
"...Heroics and some actions are not plausible, but it's fiction, right?..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the writing quality of the book. Some mention it's well-written, riveting, and believable. Others say it's cluttered with unnecessary details and dialogue.
"Very well written in Tom Clancy style. Great plot. Filled with action. Hard to put down! Waiting for next one." Read more
"...This latest one, Weapons Grade, is hard to stay involved with. Perhaps it's just me and time but there's too much that's unbelievable...." Read more
"...Clancy Weapons Grade” – is witness to author Don Bentley’s tremendous writing prowess. This man can really write and he’s really good at it!..." Read more
"...& fiances, but when it's repeated in many parts of the book, it becomes annoying and begins to look like padding...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's detail. Some mention it's complicated, while others say the details are irrelevant and amateurish.
"Like all the Jack Ryan Jr books, this is a pretty simplistic but fun story. I wish for more depth...." Read more
"While some of the details are a bit “detailed “ and over my head, I love all the books in this series and look forward to reading each one...." Read more
"...All this and more centralized in a small town in Texas. It's complicated!" Read more
"Book was great as usual. Still to much tech for me to follow, but great story line held my attention. Hard to put down." Read more
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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I did however find that midway through the book I was wondering why so much of the story was centered around a small town conflict in Texas when the cover and some of the chapters in the beginning hint that the story will primarily deal with high tech aircraft and international espionage. The author does eventually connect all the different story lines... the covert team in Iran, the SR-71 pilot and the main story line... but not until very near the end. So that was good, but I did feel like I was slogging through a story that was not really the promised tale based on the cover and promotion.
Most chapters were very short -and in most cases to switch POV, but not always. It seems like some of the chapters could have been consolidated since it breaks up active scenes at chapter breaks for no apparent reason. Having nice short chapters is great for reading when you can catch a few minutes to do so, but the stop points of some chapters seemed odd to me. I also found a lot of the "introspective / in your head" thoughts between action scenes slowed the pace a lot. It kinda be came tiresome to read about all the thoughts characters could have between one punch and other.
But overall a very good book. I enjoyed the detail and characters. I have not read a "tom Clancy" novel since Red October so this was something new for me. Generally I prefer the sci-fi genre novels, but this book with it's high tech military espionage theme interested me enough to read it. Maybe that is also why I was a little put off by the "small town murders and conflict" storyline that predominates the center core of this book, so that might just be my bias, and only real reason I knocked one star off.
If you are into action novels and love the "Tom Clancy" universe as a setting... this is a great read.
Penning two really good thriller novels in the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan, Jr. series in the same year –“Tom Clancy Flash Point” – out earlier this year – and now “Tom Clancy Weapons Grade” – is witness to author Don Bentley’s tremendous writing prowess. This man can really write and he’s really good at it! Bentley does not disappoint with Book 11 in the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan, Jr. series, Weapons Grade. It’s another fantastic addition to a very thrilling and suspenseful series with a fitting conclusion to Bentley’s run with the Jack Ryan, Jr. character. I like how Bentley made Jack Jr. into a subsequential ‘badass’ in the four books that he has contributed to the series. After attending a college football game in Texas and driving back to Austin, Texas, Jack Jr. witnesses an auto accident that turns out to be a professional ‘hit’ tied to an international conspiracy. As usual, like all the other previous stories, Jack Jr. gets involved in something bigger than what’s originally portrayed in the storyline and off to the races the chronicle goes! In Weapons Grade, Jack Jr. encounters numerous violent ‘happenstances’ with South African hit men, corrupt cops and other dangerous and menacing bad guys. The multiple storylines are intriguing, captivating, and absorbing and are expertly woven together to reveal a sinister conspiracy plot of epic proportions. What would a Jack Ryan Jr. tale be without Jack Jr. in the middle of it all? Bentley masterfully crafts this story with intense and powerful action that propels the reader into captivating thrills, unexpected chills, and surprising suspense! The rousing tale ends with an explosive conclusion leaving the reader wanting more of Jack Ryan, Jr., and his many thrilling escapades. Entertaining, Engaging, and Exciting, Weapons Grade is a five-star read by a five-star author
Top reviews from other countries
When the truth starts to be revealed Jack and the campus find themselves fighting against local police officers who are helping a force of South African mercenaries who are trying to steal a top secret UCAV, and ultimately the deaths mount up in the fight to prevent them from succeeding with the world on the brink of destruction.
A jack reacher kind of jack Ryan attitude. Only thing is jack reacher doesn't get beaten up so often.
Have read better books by Dom Bentley. The fun part was reading Jack Ryan Senior parts otherwise quite humdrum and most unlike Tom Clancy books. Won't miss much if you give this book a miss.