Clancy's next book due out Dec. 7

NEW YORK, April 7 (UPI) -- Penguin Group says Tom Clancy's new techno-thriller "Dead or Alive" will be released in the United States and the United Kingdom Dec. 7.

The novel is to be published by G.P. Putnam's Sons in the United States and by Michael Joseph in the United Kingdom, it was announced Wednesday by David Shanks, chief executive officer of Penguin Group and Tom Weldon, deputy chief executive officer of Penguin U.K.

The new book features, for the first time together, many of Clancy's greatest characters, including Jack Ryan and John Clark, and brings readers inside the present-day war on terror, the publishers said.

Berkley Books is to release the paperback edition of the title in the United States in 2011.

"Tom's genius for telling a story with exceptional realism and cutting edge authenticity are his hallmarks as a writer," Shanks said in a statement. "He has created some of the best-known characters in contemporary fiction and has mesmerized tens of millions of readers worldwide with his frighteningly real scenarios. We are very excited to be publishing him again in the fall. In his latest novel, he turns up the tension between U.S. forces and their most lethal rivals."

"We can't think of a better Christmas present than the return of one of the world's greatest thriller writers, Tom Clancy," Weldon added. "This will be a huge piece of event publishing."

In Clancy's new novel, "written in collaboration with U.S. Navy veteran Grant Blackwood, Jack Ryan Jr. and his colleagues at the Campus, a secret U.S. counter-terrorism organization, have been waging an unofficial and highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten Western civilization," said a synopsis of the book.