Final Flight

The final flight of Capt. Jake Grafton will keep readers riveted. His night-flying's over, thanks to failing eyesight. But the fate of the Middle East is hanging in the balance when his F-14 tears off into Mediterranean airspace. Coonts has cast the hero of his first novel, The Flight of the Intruder , as a wing commander aboard an aircraft carrier. He has also thrust him into the bulls-eye of an Arab plot to steal the ship's nuclear weapons. Sounds absurd, as Coonts intends. But the plot's mastermind, one Col. Qazi, is an unequaled artisan in the guild of espionage and terrorism. Qazi has devised a scheme whose twists and turns alternately elude and thwart Grafton and more than one intelligence agency in their attempts to figure out what he's up to. By the time it's clear, Qazi is pitted against the carrier's crew, and the odds are believably on his side. The backdrop is Naples, and the well-detailed lives of Navy pilots. Final Flight has a long fuse, but its detonation is well worth the wait. 300,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour. (October)