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Penguin has paid tribute to thriller giant Tom Clancy, who has died at the age of 66.
Tom Clancy died yesterday (1st October) at a Baltimore hospital, close to his Maryland home.
Clancy wrote 25 fiction and non-fiction books for Penguin, including several thrillers based around the military and international espionage, dubbed "techno-thrillers", many of which were adapted into Hollywood films. The author's 17th novel, Command Authority, is due to be released in December 2013.
Tom Weldon, c.e.o. of Penguin Random House UK said: "Tom Clancy changed readers’ expectations of what a thriller could do. He was a master of his craft and it was our privilege to work with him. He will be greatly missed by millions of fans in the UK and around the world."
David Shanks, Penguin USA c.e.o., was involved with every one of Clancy's books. He said: “I’m deeply saddened by Tom’s passing. He was a consummate author, creating the modern-day thriller, and was one of the most visionary storytellers of our time. I will miss him dearly and he will be missed by tens of millions of readers worldwide."
Clancy was one of the richest writers in the world, with Forbes magazine estimating in 2002 that he had earned $47.8m (£29m). His hugely successful novels have been worth £26m to the UK book trade since Nielsen BookScan records began in 1998, with 10 of his books selling over 100,000 copies. He was also involved with computer games, founding Red Storm Entertainment in the 1990s, which was later sold to games company Ubisoft and produced several titles under the Clancy name.
The Hunt for Red October, originally published in 1984, was Clancy's first novel, and turned into a film starring Sean Connery, and Alec Baldwin as CIA analyst Jack Ryan. The character would reappear in books such as Patriot Games and The Sum of All Fears, where Ryan was played by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck respectively in the film adaptations.