Liberty: A Jake Grafton Novel

Rating:
Summary: Terrorists and nukes
Review: This is a fairly predictable post-911 book: Islamic Terrorists smuggle nukes into the country and get ready to light them off. WHile we all know Jake Grafton and company is going to stop the horrific from occurring, this book is better written than most attempts at similar story lines.

Mr. Coonts throws in a couple of red herrings and false leads. There is a lot going on in this book and a couple of things that makes one wonder how close we came to nuclear immolation during the Cold War.

This is an enjoyable, afternoon and/or beach read.

Rating:
Summary: Starting at the end of Jake Grafton's career
Review: This was my first Jake Grafton (and Stephen Coonts) book, so I didn't have any preconceptions beyond those generated by the book's back cover. The premise caught my attention enough to buy this book, and I'm glad I did. The plot moves along at a pretty brisk pace. Since all the characters were "new" to me, I found them interesting and fairly well-developed (this book is easily a "stand alone" novel). There were a few annoying lapses in detail accuracy (e.g., Glock handguns don't have slide safeties that one clicks on), and the subplot involving the Vietnamese brothers suggests Coonts still has some axes to grind left over from his Vietnam service. Also, Grafton sending a husband and wife team (Toad and Rita) together against terrorists entrenched in the Statue of Liberty seemed too contrived (the potential for them losing mental focus while worrying about each other seems too great a risk for an admiral of Grafton's caliber to take, esp. given that neither of them is trained in close quarters combat). Still, Coonts accomplished perhaps the most important objective of an author: interesting at least this one reader to buy more of his works in the future. All told, I enjoyed this book!