Military novelist Tom Clancy dies at 66

Tom Clancy, whose hi-tech, Cold War thrillers such as The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games made him the most widely read military novelist of his time, has died in the US aged 66.

Publishers Penguin Group (USA) said he died on Tuesday in Baltimore. They did not give a cause of death.

Tall and thin, with round, sunken eyes that were often hidden by sunglasses, Clancy, who lived in rural Maryland, had said his dream had been simply to publish a book, hopefully a good one, so that he would be in the Library of Congress catalogue.