"The Red horseman" by Stephen Coonts

It has been a while since I've read Coonts and I forgot how much I liked his novels. As this was another of his Jake Grafton series, which I had always liked, it was no surprise that I enjoyed it so much. THE RED HORSEMAN is a story ripped from yesterday's headlines, touching a raw nerve that runs from the heart of the New Russia through a Washington seemingly out of control. Even though it was written back in '93, it felt like something that could still happen today. I gave it 4-1/2 Stars.

DESCRIPTION: The forces at work in a collapsed super-power are the strands that Stephen Coonts weaved into novel. Greed, hatred, patriotism and blind ambition run riot in a society on the brink of chaos--a society that has been ruled for centuries by terror, murder and naked force. As the infrastructure of the Soviet Union crumbles before the world's eyes, twenty thousand tactical nuclear weapons, once under the command of the Soviet military, are now up for grabs--and US intelligence believes they may soon appear on the open market, available to the highest bidder. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton, attached to the Defense Intelligence Agency, is dispatched to Moscow. His assignment: ensure that the weapons are destroyed before they disappear into a terrorist pipeline pointed south, toward the Middle East. Unofficially, however, Grafton has learned there are those in his own government who would prefer to see his mission fail--and who will go to any lengths to stop it. A hemisphere away, off the coast of the Canary Islands, the body of the British billionaire and media magnate Nigel Keren has been found floating in the sea near his yacht. Although Keren apparently died of natural causes, Grafton's contacts in Israeli intelligence--the Mossad--have evidence that he was the victim of a hit squad from within the CIA. It's the kind of knowledge that could prove fatal to Grafton--as well as to his wife and daughter. But he cannot back off: if the freelance operation succeeds, it could fan the flames of Middle East hostility into an international conflagration. In a world of shifting loyalties and shifting allegiances, the rules Grafton used to live by no longer apply. The countdown to Armageddon may already have begun, and the only thing Grafton knows for sure is--as a soldier among spies--his rear flank is dangerously exposed. He has been targeted for assassination, and the conspiracy is clearly stamped: Made in America. Stalked by rogue CIA agents, caught between rival factions fighting for the control of Russia, Jake Grafton vividly demonstrates the qualities that have captivated millions of readers around the globe.