** spoiler alert ** Quite frankly I think the first 20 chapters or so could have been narrowed down to three or four background chapters in order to provide more room to expound on the actual plot. It also seemed too mundane (and provided no excitement whatsoever) getting the "Rabbit" out of Russia and into Britain/US. I would have liked to see at least some struggle throughout the entire novel, and it seemed like the most suspense was in 2 chapters where we weren't 100% sure whether the Pope would live. Overall an interesting read, but nothing exciting like in many of Clancy's other novels.