The Red Horseman [Import] [Paperback]

Stephen Coonts (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Pocket; New Ed edition (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099248611
• ISBN-13: 978-0099248613
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,390,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Coonts is the author of 14 New York Times bestsellers, the first of which was the classic flying tale, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER.
Born in 1946, Stephen Paul Coonts grew up in Buckhannon, West Virginia, a coal-mining town of 6,000 population on the western slope of the Appalachian mountains. He majored in political science at West Virginia University, graduating in 1968 with an A.B. degree. Upon graduation he was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Navy and began flight training in Pensacola, Florida.
He received his Navy wings in August, 1969. After completion of fleet replacement training in the A-6 Intruder aircraft, Mr. Coonts reported to Attack Squadron 196 at NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. He made two combat cruises aboard USS Enterprise during the final years of the Vietnam War as a member of this squadron. After the war he served as a flight instructor on A-6 aircraft for two years, then did a tour as an assistant catapult and arresting gear officer aboard USS Nimitz. He left active duty in 1977 and moved to Colorado. After short stints as a taxi driver and police officer, he entered the University of Colorado School of Law in the fall of 1977.
Mr. Coonts received his law degree in December, 1979, and moved to West Virginia to practice. He returned to Colorado in 1981 as a staff attorney specializing in oil and gas law for a large independent oil company.
His first novel, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER, published in September 1986 by the Naval Institute Press, spent 28 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists in hardcover. A motion picture based on this novel, with the same title, was released nationwide in January 1991.
The success of his first novel allowed Mr. Coonts to devote himself full time to writing; he has been at it ever since. He and his wife, Deborah, enjoy flying and try to do as much of it as possible.
Mr. Coonts' books have been widely translated and republished in the British Commonwealth, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia, China, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Latvia, and Israel.
Mr. Coonts was a trustee of West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1990-1998. He was inducted into the West Virginia University Academy of Distinguished Alumni in 1992. The U.S. Naval Institute honored him with its Author of the Year Award for the year 1986 for his novel, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER. Mr. Coonts and his wife, Deborah, reside in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stephen Coonts flying high at a low altitude, December 30, 2004

By 

Rennie Petersen (Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Red Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)

The high point of "The Red Horseman" is the aerial dogfight between Jake Grafton (flying a Russian Su-25 "Frogfoot") and four Russian Su-27 "Flankers", with most of the action taking place below 200 ft. altitude! Stephen Coonts is very good at writing about this kind of combat, and you really feel that you're right there in the cockpit with Jake.

This book is the fifth or sixth (depending on how you number them) book in the Jake Grafton series. By now Stephen Coonts had established himself as a worthy competitor to Tom Clancy, and in my opinion his books are better than Clancy's. In particular, the characters in a Stephen Coonts book are real people, and people you enjoy learning more and more about.

In the first two-thirds of "The Red Horseman" the story unfolds slowly, but satisfactorily, as an international political thriller. Jake, now a Rear Admiral in the American Defense Intelligence Agency, is sent to Moscow to help monitor the Russian dismantling of their nuclear warheads. The CIA is also involved, but not in the way we would expect, and of course some warheads go missing.

The last third of the book becomes a techno-thriller. The hunt is on to retrieve the missing warheads and to ensure that no more will be stolen. In addition to the great dogfight mentioned above there is a very detailed description of how a major military operation to secure an enemy airfield would be done nowadays.

I found this last section of the book to be the most interesting and exciting part. The whole thing is rather unrealistic, but the reader is willing to ignore that because it's so exciting. Unfortunately, I thought that the ending was a bit too far out, and this is part of the reason for the lack of the fifth star.

Also on the negative side, I found Stephen Coonts opinion of post-glasnost Russia overly derogatory. He has his characters saying "nothing works here" and "Russia is on its way to the stone age" so many times it becomes silly. This is especially true with the hindsight we have now that Russia did survive the Yeltsin era and is slowly but surely becoming a developed country by western standards.

A very interesting sub-plot in "The Red Horseman" involves the death of a British newspaper mogul named Nigel Keren. Stephen Coonts has very clearly modeled Nigel Keren on the real-life Robert Maxwell. Even their dates of death are identical!

In conclusion, a very good techno-thriller, up to the usual Stephen Coonts standards. If you like military techno-thrillers with lots of political skullduggery, then this is for you.

Rennie Petersen

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but poorly written, February 20, 2004

By 

"leomontg" (Bremerton, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)

I can't believe I made it through the book, this is the first book in a long time that I have been tempted to drop in the middle. The plot is very interesting and at times kept my attention. It also got more and more improbable as the plot grinded its gears through the book. Jake Grafton is apparently some kind of god and can do anything and go anywhere apparently without authority from anyone else but himself. The book would have been alright if these were its only flaws, after all it is a novel and I expected to put my disbelief on hold while I read (not everyone can write like Clancy).

The major problem with the book is the writing. All the characters are extremely one dimensional except maybe Jack Yocke. The dialogue is awfully written and can't Coonts think of any other word for helicopter besides "machine"!? There were numerous plot holes, but I will concede that Coonts made an effort to fix them though somewhat lamely.

This book may be OK for people who have read the other books in the series and have already gotten used to the characters, but if this is going to be the only Coonts book you read, steer clear because it could be your last.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Implausible thriller, July 12, 2001

By 

Rottenberg's rotten book review (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Horseman (Mass Market Paperback)

In "The Red Horsemen", Admiral Jake Grafton travels to post-Soviet Russia to monitor the dismantling of that country's nuclear arsenal. Stephen Coonts, Grafton's creator, brews up a tale of crooked Russians, homocidal CIA agents and black market nukes being sold amid the disintegration of Russia. Unfortunately, the story bogs down quickly when Grafton gets to Russia - mostly because the plot becomes overly complicated, but also due to the sheer implausibility that Coonts inserts into the story - like Grafton's single-handed destruction of a formation of highly agile Su-27 fighters while himslef flying only a hoggish Su-25; the novel's climax has the hero meet Saddam Hussein face-to-face and exact a measure of justice in an ending that seems incredibly pat for Coonts. Even that ending would seem worse had it not capped off a book full of plot twists that don't come together. Coonts' original "Flight of the Intruder" was a great book because it resisted the temptation to become the sort of technothriller that "Horseman" is. Instead, take out "Cuba" in which Coonts returns to form.