Best-selling U.S. author Tom Clancy, whose thrillers about spies, soldiers and politicians, fascinated readers with their high-stakes plots and enthralled military experts with their precise detail, died at the age of 66 on Tuesday (October 1) in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.br br A cause of death was not immediately known.br br Clancy, who debuted in 1984 with Cold War novel "The Hunt for Red October," which dealt with a rogue naval commander from the Soviet Union on a nuclear-armed submarine, went on to publish a total of 25 fiction and non-fiction books including "Patriot Games," "The Sum of All Fears" and "Rainbow Six."br br His books were not only best-sellers but inspired Hollywood blockbuster films and a series of video games.