Without Remorse

Without Remorse is a thriller by the American writer Tom Clancy, published in 1993. It is set during the Vietnam War and serves as the origin story of John Clark, one of the recurring characters in the series of novels built around Jack Ryan.

John Kelly is introduced at a point in his life when he has survived the war and lost his wife in an accident, and he is not in any condition to be careful. He picks up a young woman called Pam on the road, and over the following weeks he finds out that she has been used as a drug courier and has run away from the man who controlled her.

The book describes how an ordinary man of considerable training turns himself into somebody capable of doing what he decides has to be done, and it follows the campaign he wages in Baltimore. At the same time the Pentagon is preparing a raid on a prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam and needs somebody who knows the ground, which is how Kelly first comes to the attention of the people who will eventually give him the name Mr Clark.