Divide and Conquer (Tom Clancy's Op-Center, Book 7)

Overall, the Op Center books remain the strongest of the four on-going "Clancy" serials. While not as strong as Games of State or Acts of War, Divide and Conquer makes a solid contribution and continues to build the depth of the series.
One of the things that I enjoy most is the continued development of the on-going characters. This book focuses almost exclusively on Hood and does a good job of continuing the development of his character. In general, I find the characters believable and that they act rationally; I can not always says this about the Net Force characters.
I did miss several other continuing characters, including Rodgers, McCaskey and the Striker team. These characters essentially did not appear in Divide and Conquer. One of my dislikes about this book was just this omission; it ignored almost all of the normal supporting characters. Just as disconcerting, there are hints that the next book will continue this trend.
Additionally, I have a general sense of unease that the events of the last few books are supposedly so close together on the timeline. The pace of the events of these books seems unbelievable.
Finally, it will be interesting to see if the authors ever have the nerve for the main characters to fail, rather than succeed, when they are acting on their instincts...

Clancy, Pieczenick and Rovlin hit a home run with this thriller that has a lot to offer between its covers. Indeed, this is the best of the Op Center series, and perhaps better than many of Clancy's own projects.
Rovlin has picked up these characters very well and developed them seamlessly with what the previous authors have done. Hood's character draws empathy from the reader better than most techno thriller protagonists.
The plot in this installment is delicious, as is the pace. There are plenty of Whitehouse shenanigans, lots of intrigue...resourceful terrorists pursuit by intrepid and equally resourceful agents. There's even a bit of detente as the Russian Op Center makes a dramatic appearance.
All together, a stellar job by the authors. Its a good read, folks. Questions? email me.

What does "Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieezenik Written by Jeff Rovin" on the cover of this book mean? I hope it means it wasn't written by Clancy, because it is really a dog. The prose is formulaic, you'd think it was written by a computer. Take a generic idea, have the computer mix and match names, places, and tired trite situations. I'll stick to books by Clancy himself, even though I'm disappointed he would tack his name on such drivel.

As a former spy for a foreign country that I will just call "the UK", I can safely say that Mr. Clancy's novels, and especially _Divide and Conquer_, are the most ridiculously inaccurate depiction of the spying life that I have ever come across. Civilians wondering what the life of a spy is really like would do better to watch a James Bond film on cable television.

A stiff, slow-to-develop installment in an otherwise exciting OP-CENTER series by Tom Clancy, et. al. In the new-world order, the bad buys are no longer the Soviets or rogue nations, instead they are our own government officials.
Op-Center Director Paul Hood gets to the bottom of terrorist activities in the Caspian sea, only to learn that it is somehow connected to the President’s deteriorating mental state. In a suspenseful ending, Hood solves the riddle with help from a Russian spy and the First Lady.
This installment seems mechanical and cookie-cutter with humorless characters. First-time OP-CENTER readers might want to try an earlier novel, while purists will want to stay with the story line and character developments.

Heard the taped version of TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER:
DIVIDE AND CONQUER by Jeff Rovin . . . this is a gripping
thriller about tensions between Iran and the former Soviet republic of
Azerbaijan . . . conspirators within the State Department are at
work, trying to cause tensions to flair . . . at the same time, they
try to convince the President of the United States that he is
mentally unstable . . . it is up to Paul Hood and the members of
the Op-Center to prevent the outbreak of war and save the
President's honor . . . there's a lot of plot squeezed into these
tapes, and though I'm not ordinarily a fan of this genre, I admit
that I liked this tale . . . my enjoyment was magnified by
as a result of an excellent narration by Robert Foxworth.

Divide & Conquer is a nice change to the Op-Center series. The Op-Center series was starting to get old. It was getting a generic story line to it: Some terrorists come up with a bad idea, John Hood and Op-Cener must try and figure out what they are doing and send in Striker to stop them. In Divide & Conquer, spying and sabotage replace the Op-Center vs. Terrorists feel of Op-Center. The terrorists focus on starting a war and frame other countries for acts of sabotage. I thought the book was one of the best Op-Center books so far. If you liked "Mission: Impossible" you'll like this book.

I have to say that I was expecting a little bit more. This book is somewhat to far-stretch in terms of who's doing what. Everybody is conspiring against each other and Paul is the man. Well even though he did pretty good in the other book, I think he losing it to Jack Ryan which contains a much deeper character.
With the recent ups & downs of TC's books, maybe he should slow down a bit and work harder on his characters (Op-Center, Net Force, Power Plays, Jack Ryan). We had jack for what, almost 2 decades? Paul's characters will almost have the same number of books in 3 years as well as having a few ones with Net Force and the Power Play so the depth is not there as it was before.
But the book was good enough for me to look forward for the next one, which I hope TC will take more time to do.

What's really frustrating about the whole Op-Center series is the false flag they fly under; Clancy and Pieczenik did come up with the concept, but Jeff Rovin is getting none of the credit for the work that he's doing. The concept of Op-Center is a good one, but comparing them to other Clancy novels is disingenuous.
The one-star rating mainly exists so that Amazon.com's readers can see what's going on -- these books are still great, but if you're expecting a Clancy-type writing style, you will not find it here. You will find a pleasing style that's very readable, however.

AS a major Clancy fan, I've always enjoyed the Op-Center series. This was a exceptional book, different from the others in it's very focused "cast". Interesting just how easy it seemed to reach a man like the President of the U.S. & tinker with his mind & VERY SCARY. Though I missed the Striker Team, the new additions were great. This was one fast paced, exciting,"educational" book. I didn't see the end at all until the tie-up. It's amazing how Clancy can weave all the plots & sub plots, of course that is what keeps us all coming back. BRAVO.