Synopsis
In the forbidden waters of the White Sea, the captain and crew of the "USS Reno" witness the destruction of one of the Soviet secret bases by a Soviet submarine, and soon commander "Plutonium Jack" Gunner is caught in an internecine battle in enemy waters
Reviews
This richly satisfying techno-thriller couldn't be more timely, with its premise of an attempt by disgruntled members of the Soviet military--the Navy, in this case--to "save" the U.S.S.R. from reform. Vice-Admiral Stefan Zenko, designer of an Arctic-based flotilla of giant submarines with worldwide nuclear capabilities, is ordered by his superiors to participate in Operation White Star, a naval contingency plan they are using as a pretext to foment civil war. Instead, Zenko slips off course in Taifun (the original giant sub) and enters the White Sea in search of a Typhoon-class submarine dispatched by the naval plotters to level the city of Tbilisi. When the U.S. Navy gets wind of unusual activity in the White Sea, the U.S.S. Reno , an American nuclear sub on routine patrol, is dispatched to investigate, and skipper Jack Gunner finds himself and his crew caught in a lethal battle of wits. Joseph ( To Kill the Potemkin ) knows his stuff: technology, seamanship, characterizations and descriptions of nature--ice and sea are major presences--all ring superbly true in this crackerjack yarn. BOMC featured alternate.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Hard-line Soviet submarine commanders rattle their rockets and threaten the future of democracy in the decaying empire. An American boat and a nonpolitical admiral stand between the Leninists and their goal. Real-life events have done damage to the setup of Joseph's second Soviet submarine thriller (after To Kill the Potemkin, 1986). Admirals Valotin and Deminov, who control the six enormous Typhoon-class ballistic submarines sailing from Arctic ports, plan to use nuclear blackmail to eliminate the threatened breakup of the Soviet Union. For the plan to succeed, the admirals know they must remove from action Admiral Zenko, the brilliant father of strategic submarine warfare. Zenko, who puts politics way behind seamanship, gets the tip despite his superiors' drastic security efforts, and takes his own Taifun safely from port just in time to go to war with his superiors. The battlefield is the White Sea, that great northern bay claimed in its entirety by the Soviets and off-limits to all other navies. Soviet rules notwithstanding, Taifun has company, the USS Reno, an American hunter-killer submarine with a skipper quite as skillful as Admiral Zenko. Reno tails Taifun, Taifun tails Sovyetskii Soyuz, whose Stalinist captain has programmed his missiles to hit Tblisi, Georgia, instead of the US. Torpedoes run. For those who can ignore the already dated politics: a tense, tight naval thriller. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
The next great battlefield, the ocean depth, forms the territory chosen by Joseph for his hunter-killer drama. The Soviet republics are in disarray. Civil war is a step away, due to a ruthless attempt at a coup by ambitious Admiral Deminov. The father of the Soviet nuclear fleet, Admiral Zenko, desperately tries to thwart the nuclear blackmail threat by his former colleague as, alone and deep inside Soviet waters, the American submarine Reno observes and ultimately takes action. The shadowy ocean world, where giant vessels blindly thrust at each other guided only by their complex sensors, is excitingly drawn. In true technothriller tradition both the workings and lore of this system is brought into play. Don't look for characterization or subtleties here, but sit back and enjoy the written equivalent of a computer game--and root for the good guys.
- Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svces., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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