Flight of the Intruder (Jake Grafton Series #1) [With Earbuds] »

Veteran naval aviator Stephen Coonts shook up the action-adventure game with his 1986 bestseller, Flight of the Intruder. He followed that dazzling debut with a string of adventures starring intrepid hero Jake Grafton -- a series that only gets more popular with each new release.

This is the riveting novel of America's powerful high-tech Intruder attack planes, and the men who flew them in Vietnam. It's all here: the terror and exhilaration of wartime flying, and the frustrated rage at sudden, wasteful death. Frank Converse's dramatic reading fully evokes the knife-edge existence of pilot Jake Grafton, who finally decides to do things his way, on the riskiest mission of all. First a best-selling book and now a major motion picture in the tradition of The Hunt for Red October.

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Reviewers praised Flight of the Intruder for its vivid descriptions of life in the cockpit. "When Grafton is at the controls of his Intruder, the novel comes alive with a jolt," remarked Reid Beddow inWashington Post Book World. Some critics, however, felt the novel had its weak moments. For example, David Holahan in Chicago Tribune Books faulted the "obligatory `love interest' chapters, which are unconvincing and distracting." Holahan nonetheless applauded the author's "compelling tale of aerial warfare" and affirmed that "Coonts' accounts of the riveting drama of combat flights are first rate, as are the scenes of wisecracking camaraderie aboard ship and on leave ashore." Beddow, moreover, concluded that "Coonts . . . has written a first novel of impressive power and authority."