The Hunt for Red October the caterpillar drive. Instead, he plots on a new course for the North American coast, falsely informing the crew that they will be proceeding all the way to Cuba undetected. Before sailing, Ramius had sent a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin, the uncle of his deceased wife, Natalia, brazenly stating his intention to defect; the Soviet Northern Fleet therefore sails out to sink "Red October" under the pretext of a search and rescue mission. "Red October" passes near , a under the command of Bart Mancuso, which is patrolling the entrance of a route used by Soviet submarines in the
The Hunt for Red October sales qualifying the bestseller lists from mass market paperback back to hardcover, a trend that other “brand-name” authors such as Stephen King, Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, and Danielle Steel would later follow. On April 20, 2018, "The Hunt for Red October" was included in the list of 100 most-loved books in the U.S., compiled by PBS as part of their new series and multi-platform initiative "The Great American Read". The book appeared in a fake commercial ad serving as a teaser trailer for the third season of the Netflix web television series "Stranger Things", which was released on July 16,