Product Description

Jake Grafton, former Vietnam pilot and air-wing commander, has been assigned to the Pentagon. His orders are to lead the development of the navy's new top-secret attack plane, the A-12. But, faced with political and technical problems at every turn, he soon finds himself drawn into a hunt for the Minotaur - a mole hidden in the Pentagon who is selling America's most precious defence secrets. The FBI's chief spy-catcher is hot on the Minotaur's trail - or is he? Just who are the traitors? Four people are dead and a test pilot is near death before Grafton homes in on the shocking identity of the Minotaur - and his even more chilling motive . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #385279 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

About the Author
Stephen Coonts is a former naval aviator who flew combat missions during the Vietnam War. His previous novels have been worldwide bestsellers. A former attorney, he resides with his wife and son in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Customer Reviews

Spy catcher meets techno-thriller
This is the sixth Stephen Coonts book I've read, and the first one that I liked so much that I'm giving it five stars.

"The Minotaur" combines two main stories that are cleverly interwoven with each other.

Story 1: There's a traitor, code named Minotaur, somewhere high up in the Pentagon who is channeling America's top military secrets to Moscow. Amazingly, the Russians don't know the identity of this mole, so not just the FBI but also the KGB are feverishly doing everything they can to find out who this traitor is.

Story 2: The U.S. Navy is in the midst of a procurement project to obtain a new attack aircraft to replace the aging A-6 Intruder. The new airplane will be based on stealth technology, including a top-secret device to actively suppress radar reflections.

I found the procurement story to be especially interesting. There's a lot of presumably authentic inside information on how the U.S. military handles the procurement of a major weapons system. The political skullduggery involved was fascinating, with a high-ranking U.S. Senator manipulating the process in an attempt to get the contract awarded to a company in his state. This Senator was more interested in his own re-election than in whether the Navy got an optimal, or even usable, aircraft!

Mixed up with the two main stories are a fair number of sub-plots, most of them concerning the lives and personalities of various people in the book. These sub-plots display Stephen Coonts' talent for creating characters who are real people, not the cardboard clichés that populate most techno-thrillers.

Overall, the most enjoyable aspect of this book is the way it draws you into the story and makes you want to learn what's happening behind the scenes and why. Who is the Minotaur? Why is he (or she) passing secrets to the Russians? Will he/she be stopped?

Unless you have a very good memory, I would recommend that you create and maintain a list of the main characters in the book. Otherwise, things can become rather confusing, and your chances of guessing who the Minotaur is will be minimal.

There are some very exciting descriptions of the test flights involved in the procurement project, first with a modified A-6 Intruder and then with two different prototypes of the new stealth attack airplane. These narratives, and some general descriptions of the joys of flying, are an added attraction in "The Minotaur." Stephen Coonts' background as a pilot and flying enthusiast is obvious here.

If you like techno-thrillers populated with real people, and if you are interested in flying and especially in military aircraft, then I'm sure you'll like "The Minotaur."

Rennie Petersen

Dated but worth a look
If you have read and enjoyed any other Stephen Coonts books, I'd suggest giving this a go.

Whilst a bit dated (the A-12 progam was terminated years ago, and there is a quaint reference to 5.25 inch disks), this is still a pretty decent read for someone who wants to read a well written techno/espionage thriller.

A fast paced US Navy based espionage thriller.
The Minotaur's central theme is the evaluation of two prototype aircraft. The competition winner will be required to fill a requirement for a new US Navy attack aircraft. Leading up to the competition there are suspicions that security is not all that it might be and from the start of the book to the procurement of the winning prototype there are many twists, turns and red Herrings. From the moment I started reading The Minotaur until I closed it for the final time I was involved with Captain Jake Grafton, the expendable Project Officer, his team and the problems they had. I spent too long reading the book at each sitting and couldn't wait until I had the time to continue reading. A very involving read.