Tom Clancy, American author best known for his technically detailed espionageand military science storylines that are set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes, has passed away. He is well known for fiction works featuring the Jack Ryan character in The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears which have been turned into commercially successful films.
Clancy was born in Baltimore, Maryland and before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance agency. Clancy launched his writing career with The Hunt for Red October in 1984, which garnered a positive review from President Ronald Reagan, who called it a “perfect yarn.” By the time his second novel Red Storm Rising was released in 1986, some military officials suspected that Clancy had gained access to classified information on weaponry, when really he had pieced the information himself through extensive research and informed guesswork. The author was also noted for his “Guided Tour” nonfiction series that explored military machinery in detail.
Clancy wrote several nonfiction books about various branches of the U.S. armed forces. Clancy also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy’s works. These are sometimes referred to by fans as “apostrophe” books; Clancy did not initially acknowledge that these series were being authored by others, only thanking the actual authors in the headnotes for their “invaluable contribution to the manuscript”.
In his personal life he was married twice; first wife Wanda married in 1969, separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996. Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997. On June 26, 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he had met in 1997. Clancy died on October 1, 2013, at the age of 66, in a Baltimore hospital after a brief illness at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, not far from his Maryland home.
Thomas Leo “Tom” Clancy, Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013)