China Sea [Mass Market Paperback]

I must say that at first after reading the three major prologues I began to take a sudden intrest in the direction at which the plot was headed. The Blair-Dan relationship and the hotel activities proved very excellent. After he received notice to take the ship eastwards and go after pirates the plot became somewhat unbelievable.

In "China Sea" DC Poyer brings us back the luckless but never feckless hero, Dan Lenson, USN. A young but ambitious naval officer, Lenson seems star-crossed. He's had two ships sunk from underneath him ("The Circle" and "The Gulf") lost his wife to divorce after she was taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists ("The Med") and nearly had his career ruined while trying to help perfect the USN's anti-ship cruise missile program ("Tomahawk"). Now, Poyer gives Lenson the one things he's really wanted - his own command...almost. On the eve of "Desert Storm", Lenson is given provisional command of the "Gaddis", an obsolete and worn out Knox class destroyer about to be handed over to the Pakistani navy. Lenson's command is virtual - the Pakistani's are already on board, and they consider the ship their own. Between the ship's sorry condition and the inexperience of the Pakistani crew (most acute in their captain), Lenson musters every resource he can to get Gaddis seaworthy. Frequently running into interference from Captain Khashar, Lenson nurses the hope that he can use the inevitable war in Iraq as a springboard to combat duty - perhaps at the command of the Gaddis. On reaching Karachi, Lenson's wishes are miraculously and ironically fulfilled - with the US reclaiming Gaddis and sending Lenson into battle. On the downside, Lenson finds that his assignment will take him into the south Pacific, against a mysterious rogue navy of red Chinese-backed pirates. Further complicating his situation is his lack of US support: the Pakistanis paid for most of Gaddis's weaponry and removed all of its ammo when the American's reclaimed the ship. Gaddis carries neither torpedoes, missiles nor even an ASW helicopter. Supplies and fuel remain at critical levels throughout the book, compounding a severe morale problem among the Gaddis's crew of surface fleet rejects. Lenson faces mutiny throughout most of the book, most severely at the end. Against dropping morale, Lenson has only vague hints that he's even supposed to have more than nominal command, and nagging doubts that his hunt for pirates will force him to become something of a pirate himself.

This is great stuff - it's a bigger story than "The Gulf", though that means that it often seems like Poyer is trying to get past details - conversations he didn't want to flesh out with dialog, nautical maneuvers he feared would bog the plot down - more often than he had in other books. Though Gaddis has a crew of rejects, it's not as fully detailed as the one in "The Passage". Poyer drops details from his other books, though they seem extraneous - neither advancing the plot nor hindering it for those who haven't read them. Though sometimes seeming abbreviated, "Sea" is still a meatier book than naval technothrillers by other writers. Poyer isn't afraid of using flawed, sometimes unlikable characters plagued by self-doubt and lacking cutting-edge technology. While other writers are happy enough to tell you how non-existent missiles work or what computer screens look like, Poyer's books make you feel like you're on the tilting deck of a "tin can" in rough seas. Watch out for that wave!

This was a fun book to read on an airplane or on the beach. But it doesn't match up to earlier efforts. The key to books like these is not just that they need to be well-written so that the reader can fall along - Mr. Poyer does a fine job of writing. Unfortunately, however, this book falls short on the premise of believability. Although the first third of the book seems completely plausible, it just does not seem likely that the key plot twist (when the boat reaches the China Sea) could really happen. I'd get this if you're a fan of Poyer or if you like naval yarns.