China Sea

January 31, 2000
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.

February 1, 2000
In his latest book, Poyer (The Circle) has brought back Dan Lenson and given him first command. It is 1990-91, at the start of the Gulf War. The navy, ready to discard the U.S.S. Gaddis, has asked Lenson to ready the ship for a final voyage. Accompanied by a crew of misfits and brigrats, Lenson endures a journey filled with bungling allies, hurricanes, a cronic supply problem, and piracy. THe crew is ready to mutiny - the vagueness of his orders and a disgruntled executive officer have undermined Lenson's authority. And to top it all off, Lenson soon realizes that one of his crew is committing murders in every port. Poyer's characters are as good as ever, and the action scenes are lively, but the book's lulls - passages filled with characters repeating themselves and to command - make for painful reading at times. Still, this is recommended for larger fiction collections.-Patrick J. Wall, University City P.L., MO

January 1, 2000
Poyer's sixth novel about U.S. Navy surface warfare puts series protagonist Dan Lenson in command for the first time. That command, however, is at first only of the caretaker party aboard an obsolete frigate that is to be turned over to the Pakistanis. After a bizarre voyage with a mixed crew, during which Lenson carries out a rescue at sea over the objections of his Pakistani counterpart, the frigate is suddenly repossessed by the U.S., at least nominally. Short of supplies and unacknowledged by any official U.S. agency, the frigate sails with a scratch crew into the China Sea to exploit "plausible deniability" in an attack on communist Chinese-backed pirates. Lenson survives understaffing, obsolete or nonfunctional equipment, a mutiny, and a serial killer among the crew to engage the Chinese in a climactic battle that ranks high among single-ship actions in maritime fiction. Readers who can meet Poyer halfway with knowledge of modern seafaring stand to be especially richly rewarded. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)