Patriot Games

Patriot Games is the second novel written by Tom Clancy in the Jack Ryan series, and second in the entire series timeline of events, serving a prequel to The Hunt for Red October and Red Rabbit, exploring how Ryan joined the CIA, with a plot revolving around The Troubles.

The book starts with Jack being on vacation with his family in London and being present to foil an assassination attempt on what turns out to be the Prince and Princess of Wales (changed to a more generic British noble in the movie adaptation), which turns him and his family into a target of an Irish terrorist group, which Jack joins the CIA to both defend his family and put an end to their terrorism.

Was adapted into a movie with Jack Ryan played by Harrison Ford.


 * Adaptation Decay: The movie, while making understandable changes to compress the book to fit in a 90 minute movie, also tries to change a few elements to make the movie more action oriented, resulting in most of Jack's CIA scenes being omitted as well as completely changing the ending, which omits the conclusion of the book in favor of a more generic ending.
 * Devil in Plain Sight: Dennis Cooley, a mild mannered bookshop owner, is in reality the key link in a courier chain for intelligence leaked from the highest level of the British government, but despite an easily exposed past with possible ties to the ULA's leader and a Communist family, the Brits find it incredibly hard to pin him down on any legal wrong since they cannot find evidence of deliberate wrongdoing on his part..
 * Enemy Civil War: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) is at odds with both the Irish Nationalist Liberation Army (INLA) and especially the Ulster Liberation Army (ULA). In fact, the PIRA is at such odds with the latter.
 * Devil in Plain Sight: Kevin O'Donnell makes frequent use of this trope to evade capture, his primary safe house located within spitting distance of his enemies, since he rightly believes they would never suspect him of hiding there.
 * Hypocrite: The ULA is composed of these in its leaders. Kevin O'Donnell claims to be fighting for Ireland, but really, his motives are revenge on being cast out of the PIRA, whose members he betrays to the Brits, mostly out of spite. Sean Grady, despite his Communist beliefs and purported brotherhood with his fellow terrorists, is a massive bigot and has turned his acts of terror into personal revenge against Jack Ryan even though doing so has crippled the effectiveness of his own plans.
 * The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: In the words of O'Donnell, he plans to lead a revolution "in boldness and blood".
 * Western Terrorists: Focus is primarily on Irish terrorists, though some French and Italian terrorists are mentioned, with some Middle Eastern terrorists serving as background characters in a few minor scenes. There is even a domestic American group of terrorist led by a black man with Marxist beliefs.