[Borogravia]

You're not kidding - calling le Carre a "pop novelist" to begin with, let alone lumping him in with a hack like Tom Clancy, is selling him desperately short.

[provost]

> lumping him in with a hack like Tom Clancy

While not all of his 17 best sellers merited their sales, I'd say a handful of them were good enough to set Clancy a far cry away from a 'hack'.

[DanBC]

Did Tom Clancy write each of those books? It'd be interesting to see if he's less hacky if we ignore the ghost-written books.

[spacecowboy_lon]

And Le Care was a real spook (SIS) - he had had to leave because he was burned by Philby.