Chapter By Chapter> Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: MIrror Image chapter 48

Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapter for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

I wonder if the next Tom Clancy book I do shouldn’t be done in chunks. I’m not sure it’s the format, where unless they’re short I only do one chapter at a time, but for a book this long it feels like it takes forever. In this format I already take a few months to review a book but I started this book in August of last year and here we are in June of this year and I’m still not finished. I’m already long out of ways to intro these chapters without spoilers and I think I’m losing interest, what with all the padding.

Last chapter we checked in with Capitalist Op-Center and now it’s back to Commie Op-Center. Will Orlov continue to be the hero Russia needs? Let’s just get on with it.

Tuesday, 5:29 PM, St. Petersburg

Maybe it’s the way I’m reading this, or all the clock changes to reflect the local time, but I didn’t realize this was all taking place in one day. I wonder if that was the case in the first book as well. Not being able to follow the clock is not helping me to be immersed each chapter, and already I’m having trouble. That I know is not the fault of the format, because it hasn’t been a problem before.

What we get (besides a pointless bit about Orlov and his wife that is at least short) is a power struggle between Orlov and Rossky. It starts with reports that make Orlov suspect Striker’s plane, but his attempt to talk to the Marshal at Air Defense has to be done by Rossky, thus upping his position and Orlov has to wonder who else around here is in on the plot. By the end of the chapter he’s sure there’s some kind of coup going on, but he’s thinking more about people seeking rank and status than the return of communism to Russia.

Orlov is pretty smart, though. When Rossky gets an alert about the infiltration team, it’s after a short exchange in public that would have given Rossky even more advantage until the interruption. That’s when Rossky makes his first mistake, pushing his advantage but telling Orlov about his duty and slyly threatening Orlov and Nikita’s pension. Orlov officially notes the impertinence and then tells Rossky, as if it were an order since they’re still in the radio room, to go to join the investigation of the infiltrators, which he was already planning to do, and then to either come back to follow Orlov’s orders or return to Dogin. Yeah, he has enough suspicion of what’s going on that he’s on guard, and Rossky may have overplayed his hand. Whether Orlov is working in Russia’s best interest or protecting Zhanin, the leader of the country, or his own position I’m still not able to tell, but I hope he still plays a part in stopping this before the bad guys win, and that he comes out of it to be with his wife and have a proper reconciliation with his son. I like happy endings, but the last book blew up a main character’s wife before a third of the book was over, so who knows?

Next time it appears to be two chapters to review. One is really short and both take place in the same general location. I’m curious to see why that split occurs.