Author Tom Clancy Has Died At Age 66

Tom Clancy, the best-selling author of "The Hunt for Red October" and other wildly successful technological thrillers, has died. He was 66.

Penguin Group (USA) said Wednesday that Clancy died Tuesday in Baltimore. The publisher did not disclose a cause of death.

Clancy arrived on best-seller lists in 1984 with "The Hunt for Red October." He sold the manuscript to the first publisher he tried, the Naval Institute Press, which had never bought original fiction.

A string of other hits soon followed, including "Red Storm Rising," ''Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger."

Clancy 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 catalog. Several of his books were later made into movies.