So my mind started wandering midway through Sum of All Fears and it hasn't come back to Tom Clancy since. I started Op-Center mainly because it was a short book and I figured I could ease my way back into Clancy's little world. My mistake. The book is nearly unreadable and appears to be an attempt to just get another book out there. I was genuinely stunned at the quality of the first four books (Red Storm, Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present), but enough already. We all know you wish you were Jack Ryan, but you're not. Every time I see a Tom Clancy book I see puffy Tom with his shaded prescription glasses, the wannabe flight jacket and his dead serious accountant's face. I guess it doesn't help that when I met him at a book signing he could barely be bothered to lift his eyes to the customers. He's laughing all the way to the bank, and it's my fault - I bought the books. No more.