Black Storm: A Novel (Tales of the Modern Navy.) [Hardcover]

David Poyer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Tales of the Modern Navy. | Publication Date: June 3, 2002

It is the eve of America's invasion of Iraq, and Saddam Hussein has threatened to attack Tel Aviv if a single tank enters his country. Though the United States has no intelligence on the type of location of the weapon, Naval Lieutenant-Commander Dan Lenson and a recon team of Marines and military professionals are ordered to eliminate the threat. After a crippling trek into the Iraqi desert, the team successfully locates the weapon in the underground tunnels of Baghdad, only to find that destroying it would unleash a horror more terrifying than anyone could have imagined.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Generally one of the best writers of military action novels, lately Poyer seems to be having trouble charting a steady course. Here, as in his previous Dan Lenson saga China Sea, he suffers some disappointing lapses. Set in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, the plot moves a curiously matched team of five U.S. Marines plus Lt. Comdr. Dan Lenson (now a navy missile expert) and army Maj. Maureen Maddox (a biological warfare savant) across 500 miles of desert, from Saudi Arabia to Baghdad, trying to avert Saddam Hussein's threat to unleash an unspecified weapon of mass destruction on Tel Aviv. Led by a veteran marine gunnery sergeant and his combat-tested assistant team leader, the group is rounded out with a radio operator, a veteran sniper and an untested rookie. The mission is to chopper in to a safe zone two days from Baghdad and rendezvous with an indigenous friendly asset to guide them to the final jumping-off point just outside Baghdad. Their goal: to reach Saddam's stronghold through the maze of sewers and drains beneath the ancient city. A last-minute change orders a link-up with a British sergeant who has been operating behind the lines; he turns out to be a loose cannon, and the mission starts to go sour almost from the start. Action and suspense are in short supply, ladled out between overlong descriptions of desert and the insides of the Baghdad sewer system. There's too much obscure military jargon, hokey capture and escape, and a work-worn plot, but military action fans and the Poyer faithful will be rewarded by a thrilling conclusion.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Days before the massive ground attack that will climax the 1991 Gulf War, the Allies make a shocking discovery Saddam Hussein may have a weapon of mass destruction that he intends to use against Israel. However, no one is sure what it is, where it is, or, for that matter, whether it really exists. Lt.-Commander Dan Lenson, hero of a half-dozen other modern navy novels by Poyer (e.g., China Sea), leads a mission into Baghdad to find and destroy the weapon at all costs. A band of highly trained and skilled marines and a woman doctor who specializes in biological warfare accompany Lenson. Poyer captures the technical and emotional feel of such a dangerous mission, which ranges across the bleak desert and through the claustrophobic sewers of Baghdad. It is also a mission that must be carried out by otherwise ordinary and flawed human beings. Tense, exciting, and gripping, Poyer's latest will not disappoint fans of his Dan Lenson novels. For all collections. Robert Conroy, Warren, MI
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (June 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312269692
• ISBN-13: 978-0312269692
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #831,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable book, January 8, 2003

By 

John W. Cox (Amesbury, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Storm: A Novel (Tales of the Modern Navy.) (Hardcover)

In "Black Storm," Poyer subverts the conventional elements of military "thrillers." By underplaying, almost underwriting, the firefights, the political "big picture" background, he leaves room for what becomes a harrowing, deeply convincing, account of men, and women, in battle.
I have no military background at all, let alone combat experience. But Poyer's account of this fictional small-unit mission, by a squad of Force Recon U.S. marines with a Navy missle expert and a biological warfare doctor, during the Persian Gulf War rings true on every page. The achievement is all the more remarkable because his previous novels about the U.S. Navy today have usually been focused on naval and naval air themes.
Poyer captures the strange intimacy of a Force Recon unit, whose members may not even be friends, yet they must be willing to die for each other. As the mission progresses, the squad finally enters Bagdad, and the sense of physical and emotional claustrophobia is almost palpable.
The reader can share in the extreme isolation of these combatants, the constant pressure to avoid detection, to avoid battle, the obsessional nature of the mission objective -- to discover if the Iraquis have created launchable missles armed with a deadly smallpox variant, and if so, to destroy them.
By under-writing the traditional action elements, Poyer lets the characters, with all their flaws and doubts and problems, emerge ever more clearly, and surely, as the focus of our attention. Against all odds, the squad moves toward its objective by all means possible. Over and over again, we're aware of how things both great and small hinge on the decision, the choice of single member of the squad.
Often that is the squad leader, Marine Gunnery Sargeant Marcus Gault. In Gault, Poyer has created a remarkable portrait of the nature of small-unit combat leadership: "Black Storm" could almost (again speaking as a civilian) be a primer on the subject. As the team leader, Gault is continually facing and making life and death decisions, each one measured against the merciless standard of the mission's success.
But Poyer doesn't cast Gault, or any of the characters, in traditionally "heroic" terms. In fact, the character of a sociopathic, if not psychotic, British SAS sergeant, with whom the Marines make contact inside Iraq, acts as a mirror of how the same military virtues Gault displays have the potential to become monstrous.
It is the very "ordinariness" of Gault and the others that is so compelling: young men, most of them, with terrifying responsibilities. And yet..."they soldier on."
In the end we, at least we civilians, are left facing the awe-full mystery of men and women willing to sacrifice their lives.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BLACK STORM WILL JUMP START YOUR HEART, June 14, 2002

By 

Robert Bailey (Southfield, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Storm: A Novel (Tales of the Modern Navy.) (Hardcover)

I just finished reading David Poyer's latest tour of duty with Lieutenant Commander Dan Lenson. I recommend it highly to anyone who wants to enlist for an "A-Ticket" ride ready for immediate departure.

LTC Lenson's diaspora scrabbles across the rocky deserts of Iraq only to slosh trough the sewers of Bagdad. Poyer's warts-and-all portrait of personal and military ethics brings the combat experience into fine focus.

While BLACK STORM is set in the closing moments before the allied invasion of Iraq it is not a history lesson. BLACK STORM reads the tea leaves of tomorrows headlines. Read this book before some Hollywood hack neuters it for the screen.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Poyer yet, March 14, 2003

By 

Frank J. Derfler "http://GreatGuyBooks.com" (Islamorada, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Storm: A Novel (Tales of the Modern Navy.) (Hardcover)

If you like adventure stories with good realism and technology, then you'll like Poyer. Overall, this is one of his best. Thank the muse that he has gotten away from his "Crazy Captain" theme that left a bad taste from some of his earlier stories.
Highly recommended! If you want the REAL info, you might also want to read "The Threatening Storm -The Case for Invading Iraq" by Kenneth Pollack. It is a the real stuff behind Poyer's story. --fjd