Without Remorse

Former United States Navy UDT "frogman" John Kelly, who recently lost his pregnant wife Patricia in a car accident, picks up a hitchhiker named Pam on his way to his home in Battery Island. They quickly become lovers, and over time Kelly finds out that Pamela Madden is a runaway who became a drug mule and prostitute; she had just escaped from her drug-dealer/pimp Henry Tucker. Kelly, along with the help of doctors Sam and Sarah Rosen, help her rehabilitate from barbiturates. Weeks after recovering, Kelly and Pam go to Baltimore for follow-up treatment, and pass through a neighborhood where her pimps work. One of them recognizes Pam and pursues them in a car chase. Kelly is gravely wounded by a shotgun blast, while Pam is recaptured and later tortured, gang-raped, and killed.

In Vietnam, a U.S. target drone recognizes Air Force colonel and F-105 pilot Robin Zacharias as a prisoner of war in a secret camp administered by the NVA. Since Zacharias possesses highly classified technical knowledge and has been declared killed in action, Admiral Dutch Maxwell arranges a secret rescue mission for him as well as other American POWs held in the camp. Unbeknownst to them, Soviet colonel Nikolay "Kolya" Grishanov has been interrogating the prisoners; he later lobbies his government to transport Zacharias and his fellow prisoners into the Soviet Union, citing their intelligence value. However, friction between the Soviets and the North Vietnamese is leading the latter to decide to kill the POWs.

Meanwhile, Kelly recovers from his wounds with the help of Dr. Sam Rosen and his head nurse, Sandy O'Toole. Vowing to exact revenge on the people responsible for Pam's death, he wages a private war on Tucker's drug ring, eliminating some of its players and saving some drug mules in the process. He recruits Rosen and O'Toole to help rehabilitate one of the rescued prostitutes named Doris. He later obtains more information on the drug ring from brutally torturing one of Pam's pimps, Billy, using a pressure chamber designed to simulate deep-water diving conditions; he is then left to die from severe decompression sickness.

Later, Kelly is approached by Maxwell to lead the rescue mission on Zacharias and other American POWs, since he knew the area from his days in the UDT and had previously gone behind enemy lines to rescue Maxwell's son. Kelly takes a break from his stateside mission of revenge and proceeds to Vietnam. A KGB mole informs the Soviets of the rescue mission, which is compromised. However, Kelly captures Grishanov while escaping from the camp. The Soviet colonel is then used as leverage to negotiate the transfer of Zacharias and his fellow prisoners to Hanoi Hilton, where they will be confirmed as alive and eventually returned.

Upon returning from Vietnam, Kelly finds out that Doris and her father had been brutally murdered and continues his mission of revenge. He finds out that the Asian heroin processed by Tucker's drug ring was smuggled into the U.S. through inserting them into the corpses of dead American soldiers, and also deduces that a corrupt police officer is on Tucker's payroll. Meanwhile, the CIA try to recruit him following his actions in Vietnam, but due to Kelly's difficult position, they agree to help him escape his legal woes in return for the assassination of the mole who had burned the Vietnam operation. Kelly kills the supposed mole, who is an aide to the National Security Advisor, inadvertently leaving the real mole, a Senate aide and anti-war activist, in place. He then rushes to complete his vendetta, finally killing Tucker, his mafia associate and other cohorts. Corrupt police Lieutenant Mark Charon is incidentally murdered.

Emmet Ryan, the lead police investigator in the series of killings on drug dealers in Baltimore, has finally identified Kelly as the murderer. He confronts him on his boat, where Kelly confesses his crime. He bargains with the detective for one more hour of liberty before being arrested; Ryan agrees, but Kelly later fakes his death by blowing up his boat. He is then rescued by his CIA superiors, who then recruit him under his new identity as John Clark. He quietly resumes contact with O'Toole and marries her. Three years later, Zacharias and his fellow POWs are released after the end of the American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Without Remorse is said to be inspired by David Morrell's novel First Blood (1972), as well a string of action films that feature violent and "psycho" Vietnam veterans of the 1980s. Clancy subverted the cliché by framing Kelly's rage and frustration as "pro-social". Moreover, it gave him a platform to express his disgust with the U.S. government for neglecting Vietnam veterans, who "understand the arts of war".[2]

Regarding the message of the novel, Clancy said: "The central question in this book is: What is justice? And how is justice applied? What if you're in the situation where a great wrong has been done and the law does not respond to it? Now, is your duty as a citizen just to forget about it and permit society as a whole to make that mistake? Or is your duty as a citizen to become the instrument of justice, if you can do so in a controlled and structured and just way? Do you have the moral right to become the instrument of justice yourself?"[3]

Clancy started working on Without Remorse in 1971. He later went back to the previously abandoned story in 1992, spending about four months on the novel. He explained the process: "You gotta tell a good story if people are going to read it. I think you have an ethical obligation to deal with those issues as truthfully as possible. So, there's an educational aspect to what I do."

In 1992, Putnam paid $14 million for the North American rights, a record for a single book.[4]

Commercially, the book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of August 29, 1993.

Critically, Without Remorse received generally positive reviews. Dallas Morning News hailed it as "Mr. Clancy's best", while the San Diego Union-Tribune praised it as "a non-stop emotional roller coaster".[5] However, Kirkus Reviews gave it a mixed verdict, stating that it is "twice as long as the two rather creaky storylines can bear, but the millions of midlevel, desk-bound, action-loving bureaucrats whose adventurous wishes Clancy so faithfully fulfills are unlikely to complain."[6] Publishers Weekly also gave it a mixed review, bemoaning Clancy's "attempts to rationalize this amoral crusade with passages of introspection by characters who are either noble warriors or human scum" as well as "failings of style and moral judgment"; however, they agree that "this overlong, often melodramatic novel seems destined to follow its predecessors to the top of the bestseller lists."[7]

Savoy Pictures first bought the film rights to Without Remorse soon after the novel was released for $2.5 million.[8] At one point, Keanu Reeves was offered the role as Clark for $7 million but declined.[9] Variety magazine reported that Laurence Fishburne and Gary Sinise were later attached to star in the adaptation; however, production was shut down due to script problems and financial woes with the production company.[10] The film went under development hell for years until Christopher McQuarrie signed on with Paramount Pictures to direct the adaptation in 2012.[11] Tom Hardy was approached by Paramount to play Clark, and Kevin Costner was slated to reprise his role as mentor William Harper from another Clancy-based film, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), but this version was most likely scrapped.[12]

In 2017, it was announced that Akiva Goldsman signed on with the same studio to produce another film adaptation starring Clark, Rainbow Six.[13] On September 20, 2018, Michael B. Jordan was announced to be playing the character in a two-part film series, which will be composed of Without Remorse and Rainbow Six and with Goldsman, Jordan, Josh Appelbaum, and Andre Nemec producing.[14] Stefano Sollima is currently in talks to direct the film.[15] On January 9, 2019, Variety announced that Taylor Sheridan will rewrite the screenplay. [16]