Cuba! (Hardcover)

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

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.