Stephen Coonts may be a relatively new and/or unfamiliar name to you. Not that he has been laboring in obscurity or anything. He has had several New York Times bestsellers in the military adventure genre featuring Jake Grafton, a rear admiral who has worked his way up the naval ladder. If you don't know about Coonts, or haven't read anything by him recently, CUBA is your opportunity to get aquainted.
CUBA finds Jake Grafton assigned to a top secret project at Guantanamo Bay, the last American toehold in Cuba. His assignment: to oversee the safe transport of cargo that is not supposed to exist out of Gitmo. The cargo? Chemical and biological weapons. As in the real world, however, events do not take place in a static environment. In CUBA, Fidel Castro is on his deathbed. Predictably, there is an incredible amount of jockeying for positions among his successors. Alejo Vargas, Castro's Interior minister, appears to lead the field. He is the classic dictator --- one can almost hear the boos and hisses every time he appears --- but he is not without rivals. Hector Sedano, a radical priest, is also in the running. An additional element runs underneath all of the intrigue as well: CUBA has a biological weapons cache of its own. And it has loaded it atop missiles aimed at the good ol' U.S. What will happen when Castro dies? Whose finger will be on the trigger? And if the button is pushed, can the U.S. stop the potential disaster?
Coonts keeps several balls in the air in CUBA and never lets one drop. While he demonstrates a thorough knowledge of military technology, he keeps the technical descriptions to a minimum and never lets the hardware get in the way of his narrative. He also wisely keeps the focus shifting among several characters, all of whom are quite intriguing in their own way. Tommy Carmellini, a master thief recruited by the CIA, almost steals the show. Hopefully, we will see more of him in the future. And if CUBA is any indication, we will be seeing more of Stephen Coonts and Jake Grafton.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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