Product Description

Castro is dying and the people of Cuba face an uncertain future. Hector Sedeno, a priest and outspoken opponent of Castro's regime, looks forward to a future free of dictatorship. He is prepared to call on his people to take control as soon as Castro dies. But the Minister of Security, Alejo Vargas, has very different ideas - he want to rule Cuba after Castro. The ace up his sleeve is a battery of Scud missiles left behind by the Soviets, missiles now armed with biological warheads and aimed at American cities. Then Castro dies. And Vargas steals a shipload of biological weapons. As Havana goes critical, it is up to Rear Admiral Jake Grafton and CIA agent William Henry Chance to try to prevent the launch of the missiles - and the destruction of Cuba's hopes and dreams.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #354614 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
When a North Korean freighter carrying a cargo of biological weapons runs aground in international waters off Cuba--Rear Admiral Jake Grafton wants to go aboard, taking just one other man with him. His new chief of staff, Capt. Pascal, is sceptical and suggests that he takes along half a 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 previous booksabout 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; 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 Guantánamo Bay in Cubato to supervise the removal of some US biological weapons there. Very soon, Grafton and other Coonts' regulars are up to their helmets in action on 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; a CIA agent with the perfect cover--as 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 scenes of military action alternate with high family drama and political in-fighting. --Dick Adler

Customer Reviews

Stephen Coonts kills Fidel Castro a second time!
In "Under Siege" (1990) Stephen Coonts tells about a revolution in Cuba. The Cubans are fed up with Fidel Castro and rebel. "Viva Cuba! Cuba Libre!" they chant. "They shot Castro around ten o'clock the next morning", it says on page 210 of the paperback edition I read.

In "Cuba" (1999) it turns out that the revolution in 1990 was just a figment of Stephen Coonts' imagination! Fidel Castro is still alive, and still dictator of Cuba, but now he's dying of cancer! Fortunately, his mistress is at his bedside when he expires, and she manages to grab some videotapes that will later play an important role in the selection of Castro's successor.

One wonders what Fidel Castro thinks of all this.

I think it's unfortunate that Stephen Coonts bases a book to such a large extent on a real person. In "Under Siege" Castro wasn't really in the story, and his death was a minor event. But in "Cuba" the dying Castro is THE main character for the first 100 pages. And for the following 150 pages the main story is about how the various people in Castro's inner circle fight each other to become the new leader of Cuba.

It's all very exciting and interesting, but it's so hypothetical (the last I heard good ol' Fidel was still alive and kicking) that it makes it difficult to get seriously involved.

Fortunately, in the last half of the book Rear Admiral Jake Grafton of the U.S. Navy becomes the central figure in the story, together with his loyal sidekick Toad Tarkington. Toad's wife Rita is also present, flying a V-22 Osprey, a hybrid helicopter / fixed-wing aircraft - more about this later.

The focal point of the overall story are some chemical/biological warheads belonging to the USA, and some ditto chemical/biological warheads being developed by the Cubans for use against the USA. The Americans are shipping their CBWs from Guantánamo Bay back to the USA for destruction, but the Cubans manage to hijack the transport ship, so now the Cubans have both their own CBWs and the American CBWs. It's a new Cuban missile crisis, for those who can remember the first Cuban missile crisis back in the 1960's.

Stephen Coonts' solution to this crisis is a bit too Tom Clancy'ish for my taste. Lots of high-tech weaponry (cruise missiles and stealth bombers, for example) being used to put a third-world country in its proper place. Still, it is rather exciting, and recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq indicate that it's not all that unlikely.

This book marks the introduction of Tommy Carmellini, a CIA operative and former jewel thief. Tommy goes on to feature in the next three Jake Grafton books, and then finally graduates to star in his own book, "Wages of Sin" (2004) (published as "Liars & Thieves" in N. America).

Finally, a quick note about the V-22 Osprey, featured in this book as the U.S. Marine's new transport/attack aircraft. The Osprey was actually still being tested in 1999, and unfortunately two of them crashed in 2000, killing a total of 23 Marines. The latest information I can find about this aircraft is that the program is still on hold.

In conclusion, not one of Stephen Coonts' best books. The first half is intriguing but too hypothetical, the second half very exciting but a bit too weapons-oriented. Still, it is Stephen Coonts, and he is very good at writing exciting stories with inventive plots and populated with interesting characters.

Rennie Petersen

Great Characters--Great Setting
I'm an American woman teacher living overseas, and this is the first Stephen Coonts novel that I've read. I liked it. I enjoy thrillers in foreign settings, and this one did not disappoint me.

I had recently read some other novels, by another author, dealing with Cuba, and Cuban Americans livng in Miami, which is what drew me to this book. Knowing from those books about the constant speculation, in the Cuban-American community, of what will happen when Fidel dies, I read this novel with great interest! I thought he wove a fantastic tale around this idea. I liked the personalities given to the Cuban characters in the book.

I also enjoyed some of the military aspects of the book, and the discussion of WHY we (and other countries) are "armed to the teeth."

I would definitely be willing to read more books by this author.

Excellent Thriller
Being the first Coonts novel I've read, I didn't really know what to expect. By the end though, I was left wondering why I hadn't heard of this obviously talented novelist already. The plot flows well with a perfect chord struck between strong characterisation and technological accuracy. Coonts also uses well the beautiful backdrop of Cuba and the Carribean and I especially liked the involvement of Fidel Castro and his counterpart in Washington. All in all this is a thriller to match any- one I would recommend to anyone appreciative of this genre.