The Red Horseman (Jake Grafton Series, 6)

Coonts, Stephen

ISBN 10: 1480515418 ISBN 13: 9781480515413

Publisher: Brilliance Audio, 2015

Synopsis

When the Soviet Union collapses, thousands of nuclear warheads go unaccounted for, and it’ll take someone of Jake Grafton’s talents to make sure they don’t end up in the wrong hands

Promoted to deputy director of a new U.S. intelligence agency, the stakes of Jake Grafton’s commission are higher than ever before. With the USSR on the brink of dissolution, a vast nuclear arsenal is suddenly ripe for the taking by mercenaries, rogue nations, and insane Russian nationalists. Grafton must stop them, and he may have to do it alone:Not everyone supposedly on his side wants him to succeed.

The Red Horseman is a startling vision of the apocalyptic danger that emerged at the end of the Cold War, a threat that still exists wherever nuclear weapons remain poorly secured.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephen Coonts (b. 1946) was born in Buckhannon, West Virginia. He is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight thriller and nonfiction titles, including The Intruders, The Minotaur, Under Siege, The Red Horseman, and The Cannibal Queen. A combat pilot in the Vietnam War, Coonts’s technical knowledge of aviation and warfare has contributed to the enormous popularity of his novels. The author currently divides his time between his home in Colorado and a farm in West Virginia, where he does much of his writing.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Rear Admiral Jake Grafton, aviator-hero of Coonts's Under Siege (1990), etc., now saves the world from potential Armageddon- -and gets to meet Boris Yeltsin and Saddam Hussein in the bargain. The nearly nonstop action begins when an Israeli spy gives Jake's assistant Toad Tarkington a photo that leads Jake and Toad to suspect a CIA cabal at work in numerous evil deeds, including the murder of publishing magnate Nigel Keren (read: Robert Maxwell) by way of ``binary'' poison--poison that, because of the duo's sleuthing, may next be used on them. But despite the threat, Jake and Toad soldier on with their next assignment: to monitor the dismantling of Soviet nuclear missiles. The pair's sojourn in Russia allows Coonts to indulge in his usual soapboxing (``In case you haven't noticed,'' says Jake, ``Russia is a third-world shithole'') even as Jake and Toad meet with beetle-browed generals and try to avoid being poisoned by the CIA cabal. Meanwhile, an anti-Yeltsin KGB faction blows up a Russian nuclear-weapons site, causing a meltdown that may kill a million (```Another million,' Jake Grafton roared savagely. `God in heaven, when will it ever stop?'''). As Russia erupts in panic, Jake learns that the meltdown covered up the theft from the site of several warheads that were then sold to Saddam Hussein. After Jake confers with Yeltsin, the admiral and Toad's pilot-wife take to the skies to bomb the reactor's remaining missiles, shooting down renegade KGB jets in the process. Jake then exposes the CIA cabal and retrieves the stolen warheads through a raid on Iraq--where both the outlaw KGB leader and Saddam himself make a big mistake by getting in Jake's way. Coonts's plots are getting as overcomplicated as Tom Clancy's, but his flying-and-fighting scenes are as exciting as ever. Chalk up another red, white, and blue ace for the author and his jet- jockeys. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1480515418
• ISBN 13: 9781480515413
• Binding: Audio CD