Firefox by Craig Thomas

(pb; 1977: first book in the Mitchell Gant quadrilogy)

From the back cover

“Firefox. Code name for the deadliest warplane ever built., the Soviet Mig-31. Its lethal weapons system is controlled by pilot thought-impulses. So invincible it could wipe America out of the skies.”

Review

The first Firefox novel is a gripping, tightly written action thriller that got this reader from its first word to its last. One of the admirable things about it is how Thomas keeps the technical information balanced, interesting enough─I would guess─to maintain the interest of tech-heads, but brief and mainstream enough that an average reader like myself would get [and enjoy] the gist of it. This is a fun, Cold War-era blast of sweaty-PTSD prose, a good kick-back-for-a-couple-of-hours book.

Followed by Firefox Down!

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The resulting film was released on June 16, 1982. Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the film (he played the main character, Mitchell Gant). The screenplay was written by Alex Lasker and Wendell Wellman.

Freddie Jones played Kenneth Aubrey. Nigel Hawthorne played Pyotor Baranovich.

Kenneth Colley played Colonel Kontarsky. Klaus Löwitsch, billed as Klaus Lowitsch, played General Vladimirov. David Huffman played Captain Buckholz. Warren Clarke played Pavel Upenskoy.