When a North Korean freighter carrying a cargo of biological weapons runs aground in international waters off Cuba--Rear Admiral Jake Grafton wants go aboard, taking just one other man with him. His new chief of staff, Capt. Pascal, is skeptical and suggests that he takes along a half-dozen well-armed marines. Jake's reply is patient and succinct: "I don't know what's on that ship.... It just makes sense to have a point man explore the unknown before we risk very many lives. I am going to be the point man because I want to personally see what is there, and I make the rules. Understand?" Had Capt. Pascal been one of the millions of readers of Coonts's six previous books about Grafton, he wouldn't have raised the issue. Jake is a take-charge guy, the kind of believable hero trusted by his military superiors (if occasionally viewed as a loose cannon by politicians), and not even the possibility of an all-out war with Cuba is going to make him start playing it safe.

Fidel Castro is very close to death from cancer, and his chief aide plans to win the hearts of the Cuban population and gain control of the government by using a 40-year-old secret weapon against an American city. Meanwhile, Adm. Grafton and his carrier fleet have been sent to Guantånamo Bay in Cuba to supervise the removal of some U.S. biological weapons there. Very soon, Grafton and other Coonts regulars are up to their helmets in action on the air, land, and sea. Along the way, we meet a large cast of vivid supporting players: a Cuban family whose fate is closely linked to Castro's rise and fall and a CIA agent with the perfect cover--a lawyer for giant tobacco companies who want to make cigarettes in Cuba. We also increase our knowledge of military jargon: "strangling the parrot" means turning off a radar transponder. Cuba is an intriguing and surprisingly compassionate scenario, in which superb military action alternates with high family drama and political in-fighting. --Dick Adler


From Publishers Weekly
The future of Cuba is up for grabs in this crackerjack speculative thriller by the author of Flight of the Intruder and Fortunes of War. Coonts regulars Rear Admiral Jake Grafton and staff operations officer Toad Tarkington are providing military cover for a shipment of American chemical and biological weaponsAweapons that should have been destroyed long agoAout of Guant namo Bay, where they have been in storage. When the shipment goes missing, it's Grafton's job to find it and get those weapons back. But that's the least of his worries, because Cuba is developing its own biological weapons; as soon as they are ready, they will be loaded onto missiles already aimed at American cities. Meanwhile, an aged Castro is dying of cancer, and even if he lives long enough to name a successor, Alejo Vargas, head of the Cuban secret police, has his own plans for the future of the country. While there's little doubt that Grafton will save the day, Coonts's sharply drawn charactersAincluding dapper CIA operative and biological weapons expert William Henry Chance and his safe-cracking sidekick, Tommy CarmelliniAand a plethora of intersecting plot lines take what one character calls "another Cuban missile crisis" to a rousing action finale. But the surprise pleasure here is how clearly Coonts paints a picture of Cuba by focusing on the three Soldano brothersAHector, a Jesuit priest who may be Castro's chosen successor; Ocho, the handsome ballplayer who has the chance to sail to Florida with the woman he got pregnant; and Maximo, the finance minister who is more interested in money than the revolution. This gripping and intelligent thriller is a standout for Coonts, taking the death of Castro as a starting point for an all-too-possible scenario of political turmoil and military brinkmanship. $325,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) FYI: In one of this season's more interesting coincidences, Coonts chooses for his epigraph the same poem by Jos? Mart! as does Amy Ephron in her book White Rose, reviewed above. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Fidel Castro is dying of cancer just as the United States decides to move its cache of chemical weapons from its Cuban base. On the way to Norfolk, the freighter carrying the warheads disappears. When the navy discovers it aground on a Cuban island, the weapons and the crew are gone. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton is given the job of figuring out what happened. In the course of the investigation, he finds that Cuba has missiles left over from the Soviet Union's involvement with Castro, and the Cuban government is manufacturing a new strain of polio for which there is no cure. Coonts has perfected the art of the high-tech adventure story. He juggles a multivoiced narrative with action taking place in a number of different locations but seldom loses sight of the direction of the story. This tale of what could happen when Castro dies grips the imagination from first to last. For all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/99; Cuba is currently a popular topic with thriller writers, as seen in Martin Cruz Smith's Havana Bay, LJ 5/1/99.AEd.]AJo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., O.-AJo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., OH Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The popular Coonts mines the original Cuban missile crisis for source material in his latest military-techno thriller. Without preamble, he introduces the threat: a half-dozen ballistic missiles Castro and the Russians secretly stashed in silos after the crisis. Forty years on, Castro is at death's door, his associates jockeying for the succession. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy is covering the extraction from Guantanamo Bay of a chemical/biological weapons stockpile, a task that facilitates Coonts folding in the specs on high-tech military iron (he was a navy pilot before taking up scrivening). He gets to operate the equipment through a snafu: the navy loses track of the toxic warfare weapons. While it searches, a pistol-packing, safe-cracking CIA duo in Havana discover what the Cubans have been developing in their lab (creating a polio warhead for their missiles), and, with gunslinging panache, the CIA guys slickly egress hostile territory, carrying critical targeting information. The winner of the succession struggle knows the Americans have found him out, thus setting the table for novel-ending battles around the missile sites, featuring appearances by seemingly every weapon in the U.S. armory short of the Bomb. Inevitably, the details about the V-22 Osprey and its kindred overshadow the characters flying the planes, but readers gun for Coonts' books because of their dramatic, diverting action. Setting the genre's conventions in a post-Castro context, Coonts delivers the anticipated excitement. Gilbert Taylor


From Kirkus Reviews
Coonts, military-combat thrillermeister, pits his series character, Jake Grafton, against a power-mad Cuban bureaucrat armed with Soviet ICBMs aimed at the U.S. As Fidel Castro lies dying of cancer in Havana, returning Cuban migrs, government sleazies, radicals, former revolutionaries, CIA smoothies, and even a local baseball hero all find themselves ensnared in power plays. Just offshore, former Navy flyboy Jake Grafton, now a rear admiral with an aircraft carrier to call his own, and his sidekick, Toad Tarkington, supervise a routine transfer of empty chemical-bacteriological warheads from the American base at Guantánamo Bay. Alas, scheming Cuban State Security head Alejo Vargas and his sadistic sidekick Colonel Santana have cut deals with the notorious gangster El Gato as well as with some North Koreans, so that enough of those warheads will end up in a secret laboratory where mad American scientist Olaf Swenson is cooking up a lethal, quick-killing version of the polio virus. Meanwhile, the Sedano family, with relatives at almost every strata of Cuban society, have their hands full: greedy finance minister Maximo Sedano wants to pocket Castro's $54 million Swiss bank account and dig up 47 tons of gold that Castro and Che Guevara supposedly hid when they overthrew Batista; his wife Mercedes, Castro's mistress, fears that Vargas is up to no good; brother Hector, a somewhat fallen Jesuit priest, wants to preserve Cuba from those who would exploit it; and youngest brother Ocho, the baseball star, joins a group of boat people when he finds out his girlfriend Dora is pregnant. But wait--there's more: ancient but still operational Soviet ICBMs, a crack Cuban MIG pilot and the Mission Impossible high jinks of CIA operatives. Grafton himself is less action hero here than cool, seasoned commander who stoically accepts the President's impossible order to invade Cuba and stop the next missile crisis without antagonizing the native population. An overplotted slog of snarling Latinos and everything-you-never-needed-to-know about Cuban social history--until the shooting starts and Coonts delivers some of his best gung-ho suspense writing yet. (325,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Dramatic, diverting action...Coonts delivers."--Booklist

"[A] gripping and intelligent thriller."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Coonts manages to put together the various subplots into a satisfying climax that includes enough Tomahawk missiles, stealth bombers and staccato action to satisfy his most demanding fans."--USA Today



Review
"Dramatic, diverting action...Coonts delivers."--Booklist

"[A] gripping and intelligent thriller."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Coonts manages to put together the various subplots into a satisfying climax that includes enough Tomahawk missiles, stealth bombers and staccato action to satisfy his most demanding fans."--USA Today



Review
"Dramatic, diverting action...Coonts delivers."--Booklist

"[A] gripping and intelligent thriller."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Coonts manages to put together the various subplots into a satisfying climax that includes enough Tomahawk missiles, stealth bombers and staccato action to satisfy his most demanding fans."--USA Today



Book Description
Stephen Coonts' bestelling novels takes readers into the heart of harrowing, pulse-pounding action, whether on land, on sea, or in the air. Now, this master of full-tilt, blockbuster suspense turns into a lush setting 90 miles from U.S. soil. In Cuba, Fidel Castro lies dying. Human sharks are circling. And one man has his finger on the trigger of a weapon that will change everything...

Admiral Jake Grafton is overseeing a shipment of nerve gas being transferred for a top-secret U.S. stockpile at Guantanamo Bay. But a power struggle inside Cuba has ignited an explosive plot and turned a horrific new weapon on the U.S. Now, Jake must strap himself into the cockpit of a new generation of American aircraft and fly blind into the heart of an island that is about to blow--and take the whole world with it...



From the Publisher
"[A] gripping and intelligent thriller." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

FROM OUR EDITORS

In Cuba, Jake "Cool Hand" Grafton is faced with Cuban Crisis No. 2 when Castro dies, and chemical and biological weapons become the means to a power-hungry Cuban presidential candidate's wicked end.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Cuba, an ailing Fidel Castro lies dying. Across the Straits of Florida, an anxious U.S. awaits the inevitable power struggle, determined to have a say in who controls this strategically invaluable island. And the American president has an added reason for concern: an arms-control conference has just begun in Paris and, unbeknownst to either the American public or Cuba, the U.S. has hidden secret weapons inside the American base on Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. But no secret remains one for long, and when one of the Cuban factions finds out about the weapons, the excitement begins.. "Only Admiral Grafton, on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Cuba, knows the impending danger. Only Grafton can save America from a disaster that would make the Bay of Pigs look like child's play.

SYNOPSIS

Now, this master of full-tilt, blockbuster suspense turns to a lush setting 90 miles from U.S. soil. In Cuba, Fidel Castro lies dying. Human sharks are circling. And one man has his finger on the trigger of a weapon that will chagne everything...

FROM THE CRITICS

USA Today

Coonts is a natural storyteller.

New York Times Book Review

Coonts knows how to write and build suspense.

Publishers Weekly

The future of Cuba is up for grabs in this crackerjack speculative thriller by the author of Flight of the Intruder and Fortunes of War. Coonts regulars Rear Admiral Jake Grafton and staff operations officer Toad Tarkington are providing military cover for a shipment of American chemical and biological weapons--weapons that should have been destroyed long ago--out of Guant namo Bay, where they have been in storage. When the shipment goes missing, it's Grafton's job to find it and get those weapons back. But that's the least of his worries, because Cuba is developing its own biological weapons; as soon as they are ready, they will be loaded onto missiles already aimed at American cities. Meanwhile, an aged Castro is dying of cancer, and even if he lives long enough to name a successor, Alejo Vargas, head of the Cuban secret police, has his own plans for the future of the country. While there's little doubt that Grafton will save the day, Coonts's sharply drawn characters--including dapper CIA operative and biological weapons expert William Henry Chance and his safe-cracking sidekick, Tommy Carmellini--and a plethora of intersecting plot lines take what one character calls "another Cuban missile crisis" to a rousing action finale. But the surprise pleasure here is how clearly Coonts paints a picture of Cuba by focusing on the three Soldano brothers--Hector, a Jesuit priest who may be Castro's chosen successor; Ocho, the handsome ballplayer who has the chance to sail to Florida with the woman he got pregnant; and Maximo, the finance minister who is more interested in money than the revolution. This gripping and intelligent thriller is a standout for Coonts, taking the death of Castro as a starting point for an all-too-possible scenario of political turmoil and military brinkmanship. $325,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) FYI: In one of this season's more interesting coincidences, Coonts chooses for his epigraph the same poem by Jos Mart as does Amy Ephron in her book White Rose, reviewed above. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Fidel Castro is dying of cancer just as the United States decides to move its cache of chemical weapons from its Cuban base. On the way to Norfolk, the freighter carrying the warheads disappears. When the navy discovers it aground on a Cuban island, the weapons and the crew are gone. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton is given the job of figuring out what happened. In the course of the investigation, he finds that Cuba has missiles left over from the Soviet Union's involvement with Castro, and the Cuban government is manufacturing a new strain of polio for which there is no cure. Coonts has perfected the art of the high-tech adventure story. He juggles a multivoiced narrative with action taking place in a number of different locations but seldom loses sight of the direction of the story. This tale of what could happen when Castro dies grips the imagination from first to last. For all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/99; Cuba is currently a popular topic with thriller writers, as seen in Martin Cruz Smith's Havana Bay, LJ 5/1/99.--Ed.]--Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., OH Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Coonts, military-combat thrillermeister, pits his series character, Jake Grafton, against a power-mad Cuban bureaucrat armed with Soviet ICBMs aimed at the US. As Fidel Castro lies dying of cancer in Havana, returning Cuban émigrés, government sleazies, radicals, former revolutionaries, CIA smoothies, and even a local baseball hero all find themselves ensnared in power plays. Just offshore, former Navy flyboy Jake Grafton, now a rear admiral with an aircraft carrier to call his own, and his sidekick, Toad Tarkington, supervise a routine transfer of empty chemical-bacteriological warheads from the American base at Guantánamo Bay. Alas, scheming Cuban State Security head Alejo Vargas and his sadistic sidekick Colonel Santana have cut deals with the notorious gangster El Gato as well as with some North Koreans, so that enough of those warheads will end up in a secret laboratory where mad American scientist Olaf Swenson is cooking up a lethal, quick-killing version of the polio virus. Meanwhile, the Sedano family, with relatives at almost every strata of Cuban society, have their hands full: greedy finance minister Maximo Sedano wants to pocket Castro's $54 million Swiss bank account and dig up 47 tons of gold that Castro and Che Guevara supposedly hid when they overthrew Batista; his wife Mercedes, Castro's mistress, fears that Vargas is up to no good; brother Hector, a somewhat fallen Jesuit priest, wants to preserve Cuba from those who would exploit it; and youngest brother Ocho, the baseball star, joins a group of boat people when he finds out his girlfriend Dora is pregnant. But wait—there's more: ancient, but still operational Soviet ICBMs, a crackCuban MIG pilot and the Mission Impossible high jinks of CIA operatives. Grafton himself is less action hero here than cool, seasoned commander who stoically accepts the President's impossible order to invade Cuba and stop the next missile crisis without antagonizing the native population. An overplotted slog of snarling Latinos and everything-you-never-needed-to-know about Cuban social history—until the shooting starts and Coonts delivers some of his best gung-ho suspense writing yet. (325,000 ad/promo; author tour)