Tom Clancy, author of Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games, dies aged 66

Tom Clancy, whose complex, adrenaline-fuelled military novels made him one of the world’s best-selling and best-known authors, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He was 66.

Ivan Held, the president of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, his publisher, did not provide a cause of death.

Clancy's death was announced by The New York Times, who reported that the author's publicist had broken the news. Clancy's UK publisher, Penguin, subsequently confirmed that he had died

 

Clancy, whose books sold more than 100 million copies and spawned a vast array of film and videogame adaptations, died in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, his publisher Penguin said.

Penguin gave no cause of death, while US media reports said Clancy died at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital.

"I'm deeply saddened by Tom's passing," said David Shanks, a Penguin executive who had worked with Clancy from the start of his writing career through the upcoming Command Authority, which is due out in December.

"He was a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and was one of the most visionary storytellers of our time.

Clancy arrived on best-seller lists in 1984 with The Hunt for Red October. He sold the manuscript to the first publisher he tried, the Naval Institute Press, which had never bought original fiction.

A string of other best-sellers soon followed, including Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears and Without Remorse.

Clancy had said his dream had been simply to publish a book, hopefully a good one, so that he would be in the Library of Congress catalogue. Four of his books, The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears were later made into movies, with a fifth based on his desk-jockey CIA hero, Jack Ryan, set for release later this year.

Prolific writer: A selection from Tom Clancy's body of work.

Born in Baltimore on April 12, 1947 to a mailman and his wife, Clancy entered Loyola College as a physics major, but switched to English as a sophomore, saying later that he wasn't smart enough for the rigours of science.

Ironically, his novels carried stiff doses of scientific data and military detail.

After graduation in 1969, he married his wife Wanda and joined her family's insurance business, all the while scribbling down ideas for a novel.

In 1979, Clancy began Patriot Games, in which he invented his hero, CIA agent Jack Ryan. In 1982, he put it aside and started The Hunt For Red October, basing it on a real incident in November 1979, in which a Soviet missile frigate called the Storozhevoy attempted to defect.