The Command: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) [Mass Market Paperback]

David Poyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 28, 2005 | Series: Dan Lenson Novels

After receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for action in Iraq, Commander Daniel V. Lenson is given new orders: "Take over as skipper of USS Thomas W. Horn." His mission: Prepare the Tomahawk-equipped strike destroyer and her crew for the Red Sea, where she'll join an international task force searching for weapons of mass destruction. But this will be no routine deployment. Horn will be the first US Navy warship to deploy with an integrated male and female crew--a controversial and politically explosive experiment that will raise questions about morale, behavior, training, sexual attraction, and ultimately, performance under fire. Facing sandstorms, smugglers, and ambushes, Horn's increasingly polarized crew will conduct demanding, diplomatically sensitive search-and-seizure operations against foreign vessels attempting to smuggle arms to Iraq. But the real nightmare is brewing in Bahrain. There the most dangerous bomb expert in Al-Qaeda has targeted Horn for attack--as the first step in a plan to redraw the map of the whole Middle East. With gripping action scenes and an explosive climax, The Command continues Dan Lenson's star-crossed career in a series that explores both global and deeply personal implications of honor, duty, power, and war.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[An] explosive climax...the reader takes a well-informed cruise on a U.S. destroyer. Poyer knows the ship intimately. Vivid descriptions cover everything from knee knockers to combat information center, radar to computers, wardroom to enlisted quarters. Battle scenes in particular come alive with authenticity...and all that, and more, is in this latest chapter of Commander Daniel Lenson's contentious career."-Proceedings

"Poyer packs story with both dense technical info and welcome local color. Unique Aisha merits a spinoff series."-Kirkus Reviews

""Plows fearlessly-though with hair-raising effect on occasion-through today's stormy international and social seas...the salvos of nautical expertise also lend flavor and authenticity...the author provides believable insights into Muslim thinking...Poyer's genius for description impresses on page after page. The vividness of his scene-setting grabs you."
-Virginian-Pilot

"Lovers of procedural military fiction wait for David Poyer's next installment of the career of Dan Lenson."-Roanoke Times

From the Back Cover

David Poyer mixes first hand experience with a gift for character and drama to create big, electrifying, realistic Navy thrillers. Now, Commander Dan Lenson takes over a dangerously dysfunctional ship-headed into the heart of the war on terror...

A NEW KIND OF SOLDIER
Around the globe, Navy crews train to fight missiles, planes, torpedoes and terrorism. But the Navy is being shaken from within, as women prepare for combat duty. On the Spruance class destroyer USS Thomas Horn, some men won't accept the females. Some are going to trust them with their lives...

A NEW KIND OF WAR
In the teeming waters of the Middle East, an innocent looking fishing boat could be a devastating suicide bomb. On shore, an American Muslim Naval investigator knows one of the world's most deadly terrorists is about to strike. And on Horn, Dan Larsen has fought to turn his ship around, fought a superior who wants him to fail and fought the forbidden impulses he shares with his beautiful exec. But for everyone on Horn, from SEALs to seamen, a moment of harrowing truth is coming. A long journey has brought the ship onto ground zero--as the enemy prepares to unleash a horrifying new weapon...

"Plows fearlessly...Poyer's genius for description impresses on page after page. The vividness of his scene-setting grabs you."
--Virginian-Pilot

"[An] explosive climax."
--Proceedings

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (June 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312991819
• ISBN-13: 978-0312991814
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Love Boat, May 30, 2005

By 

Douglas De Bono - Author of No Safe Harbor (Minnetonka, mn United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Command (Hardcover)

Dan Lenson finally gets command, but it is a mixed blessing. He takes over from a captain, who did his best to do nothing, and he is handed an experiment - the first integrated crew (male/female) on a warship.

Does Poyer have an opinion? I think so, and he tends to hammer it home through out the book.

Does the ship and crew sail into danger? Do they take casualties? Is there a bad guy out to get them?

Yes, yes and yes - why else would we read a David Poyer book.

Is it realistic - for the most part. I could have done without the four-letter diatribes and the knuckle-headed excesses engendered in a mixed crew, but that is also part of the story.

I swallowed this one in 2 sittings.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Lenson novel, April 15, 2006

By 

Rottenberg's rotten book review (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Command: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

In "Command" DC Poyer has finally elevated Dan Lenson - the luckless but never feckless USN Career officer-hero of his books - to a genuine command. Previoulsy, Lenson had near commands of other ships and, in "China Sea", center-seated an obsolete destroyer on a covert sea war against modern-day pirates of the Pacific. In "Command", it's 1992, and Lenson masters a Tomahawk-armed missile destroyer, the USS Horn. With a mixed-gender crew, the Horn is something of a social-experiment at sea. Sent to mideastern waters to enforce the post-Desert Storm blockade against Saddam Hussein, Lenson will contend with smugglers and terrorists as well as more internal threats - vague ROE, friction caused by the presence of women aboard and outright hostility from colleagues. Unfortunately for Dan, his immediate supervisor is Admiral Niles - his boss from "Tomahawk". Though African-American, Niles has some intolerant views on women in combat - and considering the bad terms with which he and Dan parted ways, Niles's position bodes poorly for Lenson & The Horn. Following form from his other books, Poyer adds depth to his depiction of sea-life by creating a coterie of lower-echelon crewmembers whose lives will run parallel the intrigue of the larger story - from women sailors aboard the Horn to an American Muslim who runs investigations for NCIS in Bahrain. Departing from the other books, Poyer also gives us the terrorists themselves - especially a Sunni doctor who constructs especially deadly bombs for a certain, never-named organization (though we can guess) that cut its teeth driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and now may have Dan's new command in his sites. Lenson must balance these threats/issues while running Horn on a mission that includes blockade enforcement and possible attacks on Iraq.

This is great stuff - it's not quite as unpredictable as "China Sea", but we see more of the crew's private lives than we had in other books. 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, Poyer still writes a meatier naval technothriller than anybody else. Poyer isn't afraid of using flawed, sometimes unlikable characters plagued by self-doubt and lacking cutting-edge technology - though "Command" actually gives us some techno-wizardry without getting in the way of our characters' personality.

If "Command" has a flaw, it's that it creates too many threads without resolving them. More any other Poyer book, it looks needlessly unfinished.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars We need a hero, June 7, 2007

By 

Jack Winter (Clearwater, FL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Command: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

You want to cheer for protagist Dan Lenson, but the author has made his flaws so overwhelming you keep thinking, "this guy is a schmuck!" On the other hand, Commander Dan, toiling in a Navy so flawed you wonder how they can float a conoe, always comes through in the crisis. The writing is compelling, however dark, and I continue to read every novel in the series.