Jake Grafton Books in Order: How to read Stephen Coonts’s series?

An espionage thriller series written by author Stephen Coonts, The Jake Grafton series follows a skilled and courageous naval aviator who rises through the ranks of the United States Navy. He starts as a pilot during the Vietnam War. As the series progresses, Grafton transitions from flying combat missions to undertaking various roles within the Navy, including intelligence operations and strategic planning.

After the Jake Grafton ended, the character reappeared in the spin-off Tommy Carmellini series.

How to Read the Jake Grafton Series in Order?

Every entry in the Jake Grafton book series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

1. Flight of the Intruder – Grazing the Vietnam treetops at night at just under the speed of sound, A-6 Intruder pilot Jake “Cool Hand” Grafton knows exactly how precarious life is. Landing on a heaving aircraft carrier, dodging missiles locked on his fighter, flying through clouds of flak—he knows each flight could be his last. Yet he straps himself into a cockpit every day. Then a bullet kills his bombardier while they’re hitting another ‘suspected’ truck depot. Jake wonders what his friend died for—and why? Hitting pointless targets selected by men piloting desks just doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s time to do something worthwhile. Something that will make a difference…
2. The Intruders – Fighter pilot Jake Grafton is adrift following combat in Vietnam. With no place in the States to call home, Grafton sticks to what he knows best: taking on the world’s most treacherous skies from the cockpit of a Grumman A-6 Intruder. Now, stationed in the South Pacific on the U.S.S. Columbia, Grafton must teach the Marines aboard the art of flying from an aircraft carrier—a mission that, thanks to the unruly Marine Captain Le Beau, is as joyless as it is dangerous. But when an unexpected enemy appears from above, Grafton and Le Beau must put aside their differences and work together to save the lives of all onboard.
3. Final Flight – The most daring — and deadly — terrorist plot of all time is about to unfold aboard the supercarrier USS United States. If it succeeds, the balance of nuclear power will tilt in favor of a remorseless Arab leader. And it looks as if no one can stop it – except navy “jet jock” Jake Grafton. “Cag ” Grafton is one helluva pilot. His F-14 Tomcat is one helluva plane. But some of Jake’s crewmates have already vanished. A woman reporter who boarded the ship in Tangiers may not be who she claims to be. And Jake may have to disobey a direct order from the President himself for one spine-tingling, hair-raising Final Flight.

4. The Minotaur – Navy pilot Jake Grafton flies fighter jets with ice water in his veins. But when he’s assigned a desk job in the Pentagon as the head of a top-secret stealth bomber program, his nerve is tested as never before. Colleagues start dying mysteriously, test flights are sabotaged, and the program is threatened at every level. If Grafton can’t infiltrate a web of espionage and counterespionage centered on the deadly traitor code-named the Minotaur, he stands to lose much more than just his career.
5. Under Siege – When the psychotic Colombian drug lord Chano Aldana is extradited to the United States for trial, he brings his army of vicious mercenaries with him. And as Aldana’s hitmen target the President of the United States, the capital is plunged into chaos that only veteran fighter pilot Jake Grafton can stop. With the help of an investigative journalist and an undercover agent, Grafton must find the deadly assassins before they can strike again. But time is running out, and the future of the country hangs in the balance.
6. The Red Horseman – Jake Grafton has been promoted to deputy director of a new US intelligence agency—and the stakes of his commission are higher than ever before. With the Soviet Union on the brink of dissolution, a vast nuclear arsenal is suddenly ripe for the taking by mercenaries, rogue nations, and insane Russian nationalists. Grafton must stop them, and he may have to do it alone—because not everyone supposedly on his side wants him to succeed.

7. Cuba – Admiral Jake Grafton is overseeing a shipment of nerve gas being transferred for a top-secret U.S. stockpile at Guantanamo Bay. But a power struggle inside Cuba has ignited an explosive plot and turned a horrific new weapon on the U.S. Now, Jake must strap himself into the cockpit of a new generation of American aircraft and fly blind into the heart of an island that is about to blow–and take the whole world with it…
8. Hong Kong – Jake Grafton takes his wife, Callie, along when the U.S. government sends him to Hong Kong to find out how deeply the U.S. consul-general is embedded in a political money-raising scandal. And why not? Jake and Callie met and fell in love in Hong Kong during the Vietnam War, and the consul-general is an old friend from those days, Tiger Cole. The Graftons quickly discover that Hong Kong is a powder keg ready to explode. A political murder and the closure of a foreign bank by the communist government are the sparks that light the fuse . . . and Tiger Cole is right in the middle of the action.
9. America – Dispatched on a trial run, NASA’s SuperAegis satellite has been created as the foundation of an international antimissle defense system. But moments after dispatch, it vanishes. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton fears something worse than a grave malfunction–he suspects sabotage… The USS America–the world’s most technically advanced nuclear submarine–is launched on its maiden voyage. Then shortly after steaming out of harbor, the unthinkable happens. Pirated by terrorists, America disappears beneath the roiling waves of the Atlantic, its Tomahawk warheads aimed directly at the United States…

10. Liberty – On a quiet park bench in Manhattan–just miles from the ruins of the World Trade Center–spymaster Jake Janos Illin delivers a chilling secret message to Jake Grafton: A rogue Russian general has sold four nuclear warheads to a radical Islamic terrorist group, the Sword of Islam. The group intends to detonate them in America in the ultimate terror strike, the apocalypse that will trigger a holy war between Western civilization and the Muslim world. After passing Illin’s message to his superiors, Grafton is charged by the president with the task of assembling a secret team to find the warheads before America’s population centers are consumed by a nuclear holocaust.

If you like the Jake Grafton reading order, you may also want to see our guide to Dale Brown’s books. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.