The Hunt for Red October The Hunt for Red October The Hunt for Red October is the debut novel by Tom Clancy, first published on October 1, 1984 by the Naval Institute Press. It depicts Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius as he seemingly goes rogue with his country's cutting-edge ballistic missile submarine "Red October", and marks the first appearance of Clancy's most popular fictional character Jack Ryan, an analyst working for the Central Intelligence Agency, as he must prove his theory that Ramius had intended to defect to the United States. The book was loosely inspired by the mutiny on the Soviet frigate "Storozhevoy" in
The Hunt for Red October sales qualifying the bestseller lists from mass market paperback back to hardcover, a trend that other “brand-name” authors such as Stephen King, Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, and Danielle Steel would later follow. On April 20, 2018, "The Hunt for Red October" was included in the list of 100 most-loved books in the U.S., compiled by PBS as part of their new series and multi-platform initiative "The Great American Read". The book appeared in a fake commercial ad serving as a teaser trailer for the third season of the Netflix web television series "Stranger Things", which was released on July 16,