Without Remorse (John Clark, #1; Jack Ryan Universe, #1)

by Tom Clancy

Una salus victus nullam sperare salutem. The one hope of the doomed is not to hope for safety.

What a great quote to codify what makes John Kelly so electric on the page, and it echoes throughout every page of Tom Clancy’s novel. While Kelly is not a man with a death wish, he is a man who has accepted death, and a man with nothing to lose can be uniquely dangerous and effective. There is no fear with Kelly, only objectives and tactics, problems and solutions. Whenever I am working on a story, I am always looking to build scenes that could only exist with that one character. As for Kelly, he’s a character who when confronted with fire isn’t just someone who won’t back down, but he will run right through it to see the mission through. Though the specific journeys of the book and the film are different, in both versions Kelly is not someone who will weigh the risks to his own safety, only the risks to accomplishing his objectives.