China Sea - Softcover

Poyer, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312974507 ISBN 13: 9780312974503

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2001

Synopsis

Welcome to the most dangerous sea in the world...

Dan Lenson was taking the USS Gaddis on her final journey, turning her over to the Pakistani Navy. But things didn't go according to plan. Now Dan finds himself commanding an undermanned, under-gunned, strife-filed ship on the China Sea--and cut off from Naval command. The Gaddis is supposed to be patrolling against pirates. But with a monsoon bearing down on his ship, and his crew ready to explode, Dan knows the Gaddis has been turned into a renegade itself: to engage in a violent, secret shoot-out against the second most powerful nation on earth.

For Dan, a bizarre, treacherous mission has become a desperate journey of honor, character, and courage. For not only has the Gaddis been forced into a covert mission against China, she now has a murderer on board...

About this title

About the Author:

David Poyer's naval career has included service in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific. His twenty novels have won praise from millions of readers around the world, and his sea fiction has been required reading in the Literature of the Sea course at the U.S. Naval Academy. China Sea is the sixth in his novel-cycle of the modern navy, following The Med, The Gulf, The Circle, The Passage, and Tomahawk (all available from St. Martin's Paperbacks). He lives with his wife and daughter in Virginia.

From Publishers Weekly:

An American frigate clashes with a Chinese pirate warship in Poyer's latest nautical adventure, which begins innocuously enough when Dan Lenson takes command of the USS Gaddis, an embattled vessel that has just been donated to Pakistan. Lenson is supposed to captain the ship only to its final destination, where his onboard Pakistani counterpart is scheduled to take over, but a disastrous emergency rescue of an Egyptian vessel near the Suez Canal reveals the tension between the American and Pakistani crews and their unease with the terms of the donation. Saddled with a ragtag, mutinous crew, Lenson is further plagued by an unidentified serial killer on board, who continues to elude capture. The voyage takes yet another strange turn when the captain gets new orders to head for China, and finds his ship involved in an international mission to curb a Chinese pirate operation while the rest of the world watches the U.S. take on Saddam Hussein. As the operation progresses, Lenson realizes he is being steered toward a final confrontation with a Chinese warship, knowing full well that if he loses the battle, the existence of his mission will be disavowed by his superiors. Poyer displays a fine sense of pace and plot when the focus is on seagoing affairs, and the battle scenes are scintillating and satisfying. But several nagging problems surface: the author occasionally gets caught up in nautical jargon; the writing veers toward cliche when the narrative drifts from the ship's maneuvers; and several plot machinations involving a relatively insignificant incident strain credulity. Poyer is a master of the genre, but this title lacks the consistency of his best work. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312974507
• ISBN 13: 9780312974503
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 416