Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Extortion 17 | 2014 | Don Brown | Buy |
| 2 | The Last Fighter Pilot | 2017 | Don Brown | Buy |
Extortion 17 (2014) covers the August 2011 helicopter shootdown in Afghanistan that killed 38 people, including 17 Navy SEALs. It was the largest loss of life in a single incident in the history of Naval Special Warfare, and Brown’s book examines both the operational details and the grief and anger of the families left behind. The book represents a more serious non-fiction engagement with military loss than his thriller fiction.
The Last Fighter Pilot (2017) is a biography of Brigadier General Jerry Yellin, the last active American fighter pilot of World War II, who flew the final combat mission of the Pacific war. Together, the two books show Brown’s interest in military history at the margins — the worst days and the last missions — approached with the same narrative urgency he brings to his fiction.