Stephen Coonts, the author of the runaway literary hit Flight of the Intruder just burst on to the literary scene in 1986. He has delivered several New York Times bestsellers so far and the Rear Admiral Jake Grafton remains the most popular military thriller character so far. Jake is back in action in the latest novel Cuba, though Stephen Coonts says it is a challenge for him, since he needs to make sure the character remains fresh and does not become dated. Stephen Coonts further says Jake now speaks differently since he is now in the forefront of the world events, whereas earlier he was only at the bottom of the military food chain.

Fascinated About Cuba

While writing, Stephen Coonts has always felt fascinated while writing about Cuba. Although he believes as a place Cuba is a veritable paradise, the negative qualities of the rulers there have managed to create a lot of material for the writers, including Stephen Coonts. While writing on the book, Stephen Coonts found it difficult to get the Latin culture right, as he wanted to go to Cuba and his wife was against it. His neighbor was from Puerto Rico and she was deep into the Latin Culture. He asked her to read the different manuscript versions several times and used a lot of help from her to get the flavor of Latin Culture right.

More than Just Jake Grafton

The way Stephen Coonts has managed to weave the Sedanos family saga into the action based Jake Grafton storyline is really impressive, though the author himself feels people are not that much into military adventure stories anymore. Even otherwise Stephen Coonts was trying to get away from it and Cuba is an effort in the same direction. The author Stephen Coonts didnt want the story to be only about Jake Grafton and his team shooting Cuba as he wanted the book to have much broader scope. He also has some strong female characters in his story and the reason is he wants to give something interesting to his female readers also. If the story were only about men, women wouldnt be reading it.

Fans Want Jake Grafton

While Steve agrees it is difficult to keep the character like Jake Grafton fresh and interesting novel after novel, and he left Jake out of the Fortunes of War story because he thought the character didnt fit in. The fans didnt take the development kindly and they let him know about it through the bookstore as well. The Jack Grafton stories sell better and the author has realized it. He realizes his main job is to entertain his fans and thats precisely what he intends to do in the future.