Clancy uses a device to create suspense that has been used many times before. He organizes his novel chronologically, each chapter covering the events of one day, beginning with "The First Day: Friday, 3 December." Perhaps the most famous book to use this device to organize its narrative and create suspense as times runs out on its characters is Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II's Seven Days in May (1962), a political novel that chronicles the attempt by military officers to overthrow America's democracy and replace it with a dictatorship.

Both The Hunt for Red October and Seven Days in May use the day-to-day, chapter-by-chapter device to keep readers apprised of what many characters are doing at the same time.

The Hunt for Red October is also one of many American novels to focus on the sea chase, such as Edward L. Beach's Run Silent, Run Deep (1955). It also...