Thrillers & Suspense
![Don Bentley - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B07VQJQX1P.jpg)
Tom Clancy Zero Hour (A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel)
Jack Ryan, Jr. is the one man who can prevent a second Korean War in the latest thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
When the leader of North Korea is catastrophically injured, his incapacitation inadvertently triggers a "dead-man's switch," activating an army of sleeper agents in South Korea and precipitating a struggle for succession.
Jack Ryan, Jr. is in Seoul to interview a potential addition to the Campus. But his benign trip takes a deadly turn when a wave of violence perpetrated by North Korean operatives grips South Korea's capital. A mysterious voice from North Korea offers Jack a way to stop the peninsula's rush to war, but her price may be more than he can afford to pay.
When the leader of North Korea is catastrophically injured, his incapacitation inadvertently triggers a "dead-man's switch," activating an army of sleeper agents in South Korea and precipitating a struggle for succession.
Jack Ryan, Jr. is in Seoul to interview a potential addition to the Campus. But his benign trip takes a deadly turn when a wave of violence perpetrated by North Korean operatives grips South Korea's capital. A mysterious voice from North Korea offers Jack a way to stop the peninsula's rush to war, but her price may be more than he can afford to pay.
Readers Top Reviews
andysenyKindle Wcru
The beginning of this book was a little confusing. It recovered nicely as it went on. It was a good read.
David Coblitz
Action packed thriller from start to finish. Maybe a bit far fetched, but has you on the edge of your seat throughout.
Mikio MiyakiJim Long
As someone who lives in a neighboring country of North Korea, I read “Zero Hour” with a sense of realism that is not just a story in a novel. When Jack, Jr. visits South Korea with Lisanne to meet with a future Campus helper, he unexpectedly finds himself in the midst of a turmoil that engulfs all of South Korea. Amidst the chaos, Jack, Jr. reunites with the Green Berets duo he met in the previous Syrian episode. With the help of the duo, Jack, Jr’s strenuous efforts begin. What emerged as the background of various events was the movement of a within North Korea. It was a coup d’etat attempt by an influential Politburo member to seize power while the supreme leader was recovering from radiation exposure during testing of a Soviet-made nuclear warhead cruise missile. He plans to unify Korea, force the North Korean army to go south, and is trying to shake the world with a nuclear-equipped cruise missile. The domestic unrest in South Korea was the work of North Korean sleepers in response to this move. Will Jack, Jr. be able to stop this movement in “Zero Hour” before the cruise missile launches? In the episode, a character who seems to be Kim Yo Jong appears. While enlisting Jack, Jr.’s cooperation, she tries to prevent a coup d’etat and and is shot down. It seems like an interesting attempt to try to understand what she really means in the episode by looking at her real life through the media. The thing that caught my attention the most was the North Korean commandos led by Ju Min Jun. Where does their sense of mission and passion for following orders come from? Even if their families’ peace is threatened, don’t they have time to calmly judge their actions in light of good and bad? Jack, Jr., by contrast, recalls a conversation with his father before moving into action. “The trick is to never give in to evil’s stain. Never stop fighting for what is noble and good in the name of expediency.” These words guide Jack, Jr.’s action and are the source of his strength. Perhaps because of his experience as an Apache helicopter pilot, Don Bentley’s depictions of the inside of the cockpit piloted by Mike Reese are full of realism. Can’t wait for his third book in this series.
Max R.
Fans of Clancy novels (even those by his ghost writers) will notice a slight twinge of variation. Story starts off slower than expected but spools up half-way through and you have trouble remembering that there is a whole other action packed sequence you need to keep track of. And another, then another! More than anything it shows the maturing skill set of Jack Ryan, Jr as he evolves to a leader. Brings a smile as Jack becomes all grown up.
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
Seoul, South Korea
Jack Ryan, Jr., considered himself a man of culture. Even so, he'd never before experienced a flash mob. At least he thought it was a flash mob. This was South Korea. If there was anything Jack had learned in the handful of hours he'd been on Korean soil, it was that things here were a bit . . . different.
And that included flash mobs.
One moment Jack had been contemplating the towering stone statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, the next he was body-to-body with a plaza full of chanting Koreans. Though the early-afternoon sun had yet to burn through a gray overcast sky, and scattered puddles of oily water from the morning's rain still coated the pedestrian area's stone walkways, the iffy weather did little to deter the growing crowd. People poured into Gwanghwamun Plaza from adjacent streets, spilling past the office buildings lining the west and east sides of the plaza and threading around the concrete barriers and stone planters designed to keep frisky Korean drivers at bay.
Jack had taken Domingo "Ding" Chavez's advice. Rather than renting a car, Jack had grabbed a cab at the airport. Once again his mentor and coworker had provided Jack with safe counsel. While he wasn't exactly a stranger to driving overseas, as near as Jack could tell, Korean traffic signs were merely suggestions. In fact, none of the Western driving norms Jack was accustomed to seemed to apply. After he and the cabbie experienced two near misses before even leaving the airport proper, Jack had decided that feigning sleep and reciting the Rosary was the best way to allow his jet-lagged mind to cope with the sudden onslaught of stimuli. Lisanne Robertson had followed suit, cradling her head against Jack's shoulder and closing her eyes. With the feel of her thick, dark hair against his cheek and the smell of her olive-toned skin just inches away, the traffic hadn't seemed quite so horrible.
Or maybe Jack had just come to the realization that dying with a beautiful woman's head on his shoulder wasn't such a bad way to go. In any case, the avalanche of bodies now pouring into the plaza made the taxi ride's madness seem like a Sunday drive.
At six-foot-two, Jack had no problem seeing over the crowd, but he was less successful in locating an avenue of escape. The people really were coming from everywhere, and the first human wave had washed up against the statue and was now pooling in swirling eddies. Jack was a big man even by American standards. His two-hundred-twenty-pound athletic frame usually ensured that bystanders kept their distance.
Not in South Korea.
Like in many Asian countries, Koreans didn't subscribe to the Western idea of personal space. Though to be fair, flash mobs by nature were all about crowding as many people into a confined space as possible. Assuming of course that this gathering actually was a flash mob. Jack was not the hippest guy when it came to social media, but the videos he'd seen tended to feature impromptu concerts or dancing, not chanting people holding signs. Which meant this probably wasn't a flash mob at all. Koreans had a long history of protesting government abuses, both real and perceived, and this tradition far predated Instagram or TikTok.
Using the lifelike rendering of Admiral Yi Sun-sin as a reference point, Jack pressed through the crowd until he arrived at the statue's elliptical-shaped base. Mounting the two steps leading up to a viewing platform of sorts, Jack assessed the situation from his newly found observation post.
The plaza was oriented north-to-south, with the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin on the very southern tip, surrounded by an array of decorative fountains and specially designed stones commemorating the admiral's victory over a Japanese fleet back in the 1500s. A second statue sat to the north of the admiral, this one a golden rendering of King Sejong the Great seated on his throne. Beyond the throne, a long stretch of closely cropped grass pointed to a traditional temple-style building framed by a pastoral set of mountainous foothills, an unexpected sight in the center of a city of more than nine million people.
But there was nothing pastoral about the press of bodies surging into the plaza or the ranks of riot police taking up station between the demonstrators and the office buildings. For the first time since he'd set off on his solo sightseeing trip, Jack was glad that Lisanne was back at the hotel. She'd elected to crash in her room for a short nap before dinner.
Her room.
Those two words carried with them a world of significance.
Pushing away his romantic quandary for the moment...
Seoul, South Korea
Jack Ryan, Jr., considered himself a man of culture. Even so, he'd never before experienced a flash mob. At least he thought it was a flash mob. This was South Korea. If there was anything Jack had learned in the handful of hours he'd been on Korean soil, it was that things here were a bit . . . different.
And that included flash mobs.
One moment Jack had been contemplating the towering stone statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, the next he was body-to-body with a plaza full of chanting Koreans. Though the early-afternoon sun had yet to burn through a gray overcast sky, and scattered puddles of oily water from the morning's rain still coated the pedestrian area's stone walkways, the iffy weather did little to deter the growing crowd. People poured into Gwanghwamun Plaza from adjacent streets, spilling past the office buildings lining the west and east sides of the plaza and threading around the concrete barriers and stone planters designed to keep frisky Korean drivers at bay.
Jack had taken Domingo "Ding" Chavez's advice. Rather than renting a car, Jack had grabbed a cab at the airport. Once again his mentor and coworker had provided Jack with safe counsel. While he wasn't exactly a stranger to driving overseas, as near as Jack could tell, Korean traffic signs were merely suggestions. In fact, none of the Western driving norms Jack was accustomed to seemed to apply. After he and the cabbie experienced two near misses before even leaving the airport proper, Jack had decided that feigning sleep and reciting the Rosary was the best way to allow his jet-lagged mind to cope with the sudden onslaught of stimuli. Lisanne Robertson had followed suit, cradling her head against Jack's shoulder and closing her eyes. With the feel of her thick, dark hair against his cheek and the smell of her olive-toned skin just inches away, the traffic hadn't seemed quite so horrible.
Or maybe Jack had just come to the realization that dying with a beautiful woman's head on his shoulder wasn't such a bad way to go. In any case, the avalanche of bodies now pouring into the plaza made the taxi ride's madness seem like a Sunday drive.
At six-foot-two, Jack had no problem seeing over the crowd, but he was less successful in locating an avenue of escape. The people really were coming from everywhere, and the first human wave had washed up against the statue and was now pooling in swirling eddies. Jack was a big man even by American standards. His two-hundred-twenty-pound athletic frame usually ensured that bystanders kept their distance.
Not in South Korea.
Like in many Asian countries, Koreans didn't subscribe to the Western idea of personal space. Though to be fair, flash mobs by nature were all about crowding as many people into a confined space as possible. Assuming of course that this gathering actually was a flash mob. Jack was not the hippest guy when it came to social media, but the videos he'd seen tended to feature impromptu concerts or dancing, not chanting people holding signs. Which meant this probably wasn't a flash mob at all. Koreans had a long history of protesting government abuses, both real and perceived, and this tradition far predated Instagram or TikTok.
Using the lifelike rendering of Admiral Yi Sun-sin as a reference point, Jack pressed through the crowd until he arrived at the statue's elliptical-shaped base. Mounting the two steps leading up to a viewing platform of sorts, Jack assessed the situation from his newly found observation post.
The plaza was oriented north-to-south, with the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin on the very southern tip, surrounded by an array of decorative fountains and specially designed stones commemorating the admiral's victory over a Japanese fleet back in the 1500s. A second statue sat to the north of the admiral, this one a golden rendering of King Sejong the Great seated on his throne. Beyond the throne, a long stretch of closely cropped grass pointed to a traditional temple-style building framed by a pastoral set of mountainous foothills, an unexpected sight in the center of a city of more than nine million people.
But there was nothing pastoral about the press of bodies surging into the plaza or the ranks of riot police taking up station between the demonstrators and the office buildings. For the first time since he'd set off on his solo sightseeing trip, Jack was glad that Lisanne was back at the hotel. She'd elected to crash in her room for a short nap before dinner.
Her room.
Those two words carried with them a world of significance.
Pushing away his romantic quandary for the moment...
