Final Flight

Jake Grafton, Book 3

By: Stephen Coonts

Narrated by: Benjamin L. Darcie

After a particularly long cruise, the USS United States is in port in Naples, and her crew is enjoying its first liberty in months. But something's not right. Several crew members have not reported back from their leave, and a beautiful American reporter who boarded the United States in Tangiers may not be a reporter, or even an American. When one of Jake's men, in a hotel in Naples, witnesses an assassination attempt led by this woman, Grafton realizes the situation is much more serious than he suspected.

What he doesn't know is that Colonel Qazi, an international terrorist, plans to board the United States and steal six nuclear weapons from her heavily guarded arsenal. Nor does he know that the plot is being financed by El Hakim, the power-hungry leader of an oil-rich Arab state. And most important, he doesn't know that he, Jake, past 40 and recently grounded by night blindness, is the only one who can stop Qazi, in one man-to-man aerial dogfight - one "final flight".

©1988 Stephen Coonts (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Don't worry because Jake Grafton...

...is still alive! The ending makes it appear Jake had been killed, but he's still alive and will appear in at least 15 more novels. It was, however, his last flight as a Navy pilot.

I first read Final Flight almost 30 years ago and now I'm going back and listening to the older novels in this and the Tommy Carmellini series (think of the Grafton and Carmellini series as one 18 novel series). This is Book 3 in the series. It is also the last where Grafton is a Navy pilot. It is the first where Grafton participates in espionage, but the rest of his career is in that area. Book 3 takes place 15 years after the end of Book 2.

Final Flight is an outstanding novel with a great plot to go along with action and intense suspense. Stephen Coonts, an ex-Navy pilot, is a very talented story teller. The first three novels in the series mirror his own experiences in the same planes he flew. I'm a huge fan of this series and recommend all 18 novels in the Grafton and Carmellini series, but I am not a fan of much of his other work. The books in this series are standalone. (By the way, Tommy Carmellini enters the series in Book 7 which is titled Cuba.)

Full speed reading

One of the best in the series. Unexpected outcomes and memorable characters in a fast paced read.

GET A MILITARY ADVISOR

This isn’t the first book (and I suspect not the last) where the narrator butchers military jargon.

In this book, several times, Benjamin says the radar intercept officer is the R. I. O. in three separate and distinct letters.

It’s pronounced RIO (like you would for Rio de Janeiro).

Please, PLEASE, hire a consultant with a military if you’re going to do military books.

Excellent Military Fiction

As a professional pilot, and former member of the military I appreciate the level of detail that the author goes into with all of the books in the Jake Grafton series. This book in particular is an exciting, entertaining, and exhilarating read. It really paints a great picture for the reader of life aboard a carrier, and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Highly recommended!

Liked this book

I liked this book but the way it ended left so many questions in unanswered. I would have liked to know if the men on the USS America recovered and what happened to the men on the beach? Did they get in trouble not being on the ship?? Overall I liked the book, just the ending stank.