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Nearly 30 years after the publication of his first crime novel, The Hunt for Red October, best-selling author Tom Clancy has died at the age of 66, died after a brief illness at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

dominated the bestseller lists of the 1980s, with a series of novels that thrust his appealing CIA analyst Jack Ryan into situations that combined the intricacies of cold-war politics with precise details of modern military operations and equipment. With the end of the cold war, Clancy moved seamlessly into the era of terrorism, with no decline in sales; only JK  Rowling and John Grisham joined him in meriting first printings of more than 2m copies.

Seventeen of his books topped the New York Times bestseller chart, and his income as a novelist may have been matched only by Stephen King. He also became one of the first writers to recreate himself as a brand-name, helped by astute use of video games.  His company Red Storm produced a string of games, often based on novels that had his name as co-writer but whose actual writing was not his.

Clancy married Alexandra Llewellyn in 1999; the couple had been introduced by the former US secretary of state Colin Powell. She survives him, along with their daughter, and a son and three daughters by his first wife, Wanda Thomas King, whom he divorced in 1999 after 28 years of marriage. As part of the settlement, she had received part of Clancy’s share in the Op Center series, and she sued Clancy, claiming he deliberately stopped promoting the series out of spite, though Clancy said the books, of which he simply took a percentage himself, competed with his other books.

Clancy has another novel slated for release later this year—Command Authority, which is scheduled for December 2013 publication. Meanwhile, another film adaptation of Clancy’s work,Jack Ryan: Shadow One, starring Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, and Keira Knightley, is due in theaters on Christmas.

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