Customer Reviews

Korea Strait (Dan Lenson Novels)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

KOREA STRAIT is the tenth in a series that follows the naval career of Dan Lenson. He began his missions in THE MED (first published twenty years ago) as a young lieutenant. These days thirty-nine-year-old Commander Lenson wears a Congressional Medal of Honor decoration but his high-profile history is a hot potato for his commanding officer. When Dan refuses to retire early, he's assigned to what should be a routine and inglorious shipboard tour in the Orient. He's to command a TAG (Tactical Analysis Group) gathering information during joint war game exercises with South Korea, Japan and Australia in the Korea Strait. Of course, Dan's timing is impeccable and while he's afloat on the South Korean flagship, Chung Nam, the games tracking friendly targets are interrupted by a genuine attack by a squad of subs. The TAG commander is a "rider" with no command authority on the Chung Nam. But he and his team, determined to stand by an ally, disobey orders to evacuate (crossdeck) along with the rest of the American presence. Faced with typhoon seas and an unidentified enemy; Lenson aids Commodore Jung and the ship's company in such diverse ways as, among other things, calculating threat probabilities on his laptop and working with a belowdeck repair and rescue detail. The battle rages... and then the true destructive power of the enemy's weapons is discovered. Now, Dan must convince his superiors to approve a daring proposal in hopes of preventing mutual destruction in the strait!

This thriller is highly engrossing in many respects besides the tautly-told main plot of battle against foe and sea. For instance, it convincingly portrays the tensions and strains that an American naval officer could experience aboard a foreign nation's ship. A few of the South Korean officers speak passable English, and they teach Dan a few phrases of Korean, but the language barrier isolates Dan and seriously impairs the allies' abilities to work together. Chung Nam's captain despises Lenson's sometimes ugly-Americanness, and the commodore's aloof leadership challenges Dan. Basically, Dan can't help feeling like a fish out of water in a navy so alien. Even his digestive system is thrown wildly out of whack by the food and the stress, leaving Dan in less than fighting trim during combat.

But here is one nit to be picked: the narrative's formulaic inserts occasionally break the surface. We learn one of Lenson's team has a penchant for underage Korean girls, and sure enough, he gets himself arrested. That plot is ripped from past headlines about American military men and Asian host countries' women. And what do you think happens to another man, whose command decision on his own ship cost some sailors their lives? Does he get a chance to redeem himself? KOREA STRAIT can and does lean into the predictable.

On the whole, though, Poyer delivers a suspenseful and, unfortunately, plausible scenario. The real world Koreas, China, Japan, and America all have great stakes in that ongoing political and military brinksmanship. One of these days KOREA STRAIT might not be fiction anymore. KOREA STRAIT is an expert tale of the modern Navy, authored by a real pro. (nearly 4.5 stars)

U.S. Navy commander Dan Lenson rejects the strong suggestion that he leave the service on a medical retirement. He is unhappy with his treatment having just saved the Commander in Chief from an assassination attempt (see THE THREAT, not reviewed). Outraging the Congressional Medal of Honor is that the brass assigns him with duties to force him into retiring out of ennui as he no longer is given THE COMMAND assignments.

He is tasked to serve as an observer to a multinational exercise involving South Korea, Japan, Australia, and America off of Korean. Part of his duties is to escort U.S. civilians and retired military personnel and serve as liaison between them and their naval hosts on a South Korean frigate. However, the simple but boring mission turns suddenly potentially deadly when a disabled North Korean submarine is found nearby. They refuse rescue as they prefer to go down with the ship. This disturbs Lenson as he thinks they have something to hide; unaware at that moment how accurate his assessment is as other North Korean subs head to the Sea of Japan with perhaps Kim's personally autographed nukes; Dan plans to find out though his superiors and the South Korean Navy demand he do nothing except escort duty.

Lenson is terrific as his heroic past proves a handicap when it comes to political appointees and the Naval and DOD brass, who are entrenched bureaucrats seeking their next job while insuring their current position causes no personal harm to their careers. The enemy is unknown yet known as being erratically impulsive so anything can happen. However, as Lenson has learned throughout his naval career, sometimes the real enemy is the guy patting you on the back saying good job Brownie. Contemporary military fiction fans will relish David Poyer's exciting Korean thriller that spotlights how complex the five decade plus truce is.

Harriet Klausner

After the Washington-intrigue angle of "The Threat" it was nice to get back to sea in this one. Lenson, sent as far from Washington as possible after the previous book's events, is the head of a small team detached to a Korean squadron taking part in Allied anti-submarine exercises. The squadron finds itself facing unknown submarine enemies, with tensions rising along the DMZ. And indicators show the adversaries are interested in a lot more than sinking South Korean ships.

Lenson must walk fine lines as a detached observer on a foreign naval vessel - his American expertise valued but with distrust of long-term US backing of South Korea. Lenson hates the food but comes to respect the stalwart South Korean fleet and its resolute commodore.

The book drags a bit through the first half, but picks up well as the plot thickens. Lenson makes his way through complicated relations with his own civilian team as well as the South Korean officers with mixed feelings about having Americans aboard. The tension slowly rises but at times it's as dreary as the North Pacific seas Poyer describes. There are also more acronyms than usual. On the up side it gives us a very real feel for the extreme tensions along the Korean faultline, ones that continue to trouble the world to this day. And it's got some of the best modern sub warfare detail this side of Tom Clancy.

The dreariness isn't necessarily bad; Poyer is trying to show us the real side of modern naval life - in this case the few familiarities and comforts Lenson might otherwise have, gone because he's on a foreign vessel. Lenson's Hornblower-like alienation, a driving part of his character development over the series, is heightened by depressing conditions on this or that ship. Lenson has made his share of allies during his career but in each novel finds himself starting anew, amid distrustful strangers to whom he must prove himself, and frequently stretching his authority and putting his career on the line to do his duty. Hornblower would have quite approved.

"Korea Strait" is yet the latest adventure of the modern USN's most hard-lucked fictitious officer, Dan Lenson. Created by David Poyer, Lenson has done everything from hunting Soviet subs in the cold Arctic ("The Circle") to facing off modern-day pirates preying the Far East ("China Sea"). Having lived with the specter of combat for most of his adult life, in "Korea Strait", Lenson faces it as he never has before. Having all but completely lost his previous command - the USS Horn - to a terrorist nuke ("The Command"), Lenson is tagged for a thankless job as an observer - riding shotgun on the warships of US-backed navies, analyzing, reporting back home, but not in command and (at his age) facing the prospect that he will never have command again.

Joining a "TAG", he prepares to observe a series of anti-submarine wargames conducted by South Korea's navy. Though all signs indicate the exercise is routine, the South Koreans suspect the Americans will use the wargames to justify a pull-out, leaving the south to face off against the ambitious (and still rabidly hostile) DPRK to the north for the first time since the 1950's. As prior readers of Poyer/Lenson novels would expect, Dan Lenson's integration is hardly smooth, with Lenson enduring culture clashes with his Korean crew and less-than warm relations with his fellow Americans - one of whom is an embittered ex-USN officer who retired after enduring Dan-Lenson-style bad luck on his final command.

What begins as a series of practice maneuvers beset by bad weather takes a terrifying and lightning turn into the brutality of war at sea. The multinational exercise breaks down as typhoons and international incidents beyond Korea Strait force Japan and Australia to pull their ships. The USN nearly pulls out its contribution - a Los Angeles class nuclear sub - when poor South Korean helmsmanship nearly causes a disastrous collision.

Wallowing in the sea, wanting only to prove themselves, the Koreans search for a target.

Fate gives them 4 unidentified submarines.

In the ensuing days, Dan will find himself on the verge of the next Korean war, as the mysterious subs manage to elude the South Korean warships, and turn hunters into prey. Both Lenson and the ROKN officers will be driven to exhaustion as relentless fighting whittles the task force of its ships and men, and intel reveals the submarines' insidious and catastrophic mission.

Boy that's a lot of hyperbole.

If there was only one writer who could make a story like this work, it's Poyer - no one can cut through the high-tech and political agitprop to find the real story like Poyer can. The cardboard heroic or villainous characters of typical technothrillers are absent here. Unlikable characters are informed by their desperate circumstances - we know why these guys are as remote as they appear. Poyer also allows his story to develop naturally by using his characters to drive and tell the story. We know what's happening because we pay attention to the characters - no omniscient narrator explaining what's happening or what the evil plan is. Poyer trusts his characters and got me to do the same. Lastly, while many talk about being realistic, Poyer develops, creating a compelling milieu of ships and men at sea.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK? "Korea Strait" was not only a great story but a very smooth one as well. The depth and sophistication of Poyer's other books is missing. We get some great scenes of typhoons and naval warfare, but Poyer manages to wrap things up much neater than you'd want. The makings of a richer and broader story are here. I was constantly reminded of "HMS Ulysses" and "The Bedford Incident" - stories of hunters at sea who find themselves becoming "the hunted", books that went farther and deeper and took longer to read. The stories of the Lenson series vary in size and scope - from the episodic "The Gulf" to the epic-sized "Tomahawk" - and if there was a story that deserved the latter, "Korea Strait" was definitely that story.

Length:: 2:16 Mins

David Poyer is one of my favorite authors. This commentary looks at his Dan Lenson series of novels. I do not give away or re-hash the plots. Instead, I tell you who would be interested in these great books. -- Frank Derfler Author of A Glint in Time www.greatguybooks.com

I took this on a 2 1/2 week overseas business trip where I stayed in a hotel with the worst cable TV in the world. It is a passable military adventure. The author obviously knows the Navy and seems to have the equipment and organizations down pat. I plan to buy more in the series. It didn't get more stars because the author doesn't do a good job of making the secondary characters matter. They are 2 dimensional. The author also describes clouds at seas in way too much detail. I guess like many sailors he likes to talk about weather at sea. It's a good book.

Poyer's Dan Lenson novels are uniformly well-written and often thought provoking. Some have been more exciting than others, but all excel at building tension and presenting Lenson as the man who always tries to do the right thing, regardless of whose disfavour that earns. This is less a series formula than an accurate reflection of what confronts anyone making a career in public service, civilian or military.

This particular novel is timely in the wake of recent erratic behavor among the DPRK leadership, including aggression at sea directed at the ROK Navy. Poyer deftly demonstrates the challenges of trying to understand the often peculiar and unpredictable actions of the DPRK, and the inevitable differing perceptions between DC and the guys on the ground.

President Milli Vanilli would do well to read this book, but he's not likely to feel he has anything to learn from it since he knows everything already. But the next 12-18 months could confront the Vanilli administration with a real crisis on the peninsula, on top of Iran and a host of competing self-inflicted foul-ups. Hopefully, the real life Lensons will continue to deter, or contain, any flare up while the Poseur-in-Chief continues to sleep walk through history.

I have not read the previous nine Dan Lenson novels and though reference is made to his previous experiences that I have learned a couple of those books cover I found this book could stand on its own. In 'Korea Strait' Navy commander Dan Lenson oversees an international military training exercise off the Korean peninsula. He is assigned to a tactical analysis group and sent as far as way from Washington, D.C. and as far from an active sea command as the U.S. Navy can do for reasons alluded too. Yet the commander ends up as more than an observer on a Korean Naval Vessel as tensions rise between North and South Korea. Stationed off the South Korean peninsula on this South Korean ship, the commander must not only work his diplomatic and interpersonal relationship with his host country but also with the new team he has been sent to command as he performs under adverse conditions. On top of all this stress Lenson ends up being part of a pursuit of a fleet of rogue submarines that are armed with nuclear weapons, risking his career and life in what he believes is an attempt to avert disaster. Reading this book it is obvious that this author is very knowledgeable on military terms and on modern naval warfare that includes Anti-Submarine Warfare and this knowledge makes the book more enjoyable. Note: One warning the book does have strong language and some violence.

I probably should give this sea thriller only 3 stars, but since it kept me so engrossed that I couldn't put it down and read all 300-plus pages in one day, I feel it earned one more star. While very enjoyable, this is not Poyer's best book and, when you think about, it's only an average effort. There were a number of problems. First, Poyer greatly overdoes the naval technical talk -- half the time you don't know what he's referring to. Secondly, the characters are really not developed. If you've read Poyer's other books you are familiar with protagonist Dan Lenson, but everybody else is portrayed shallowly. Thirdly, the plot is predictable and the end borders on plain silliness. On the other hand, Poyer knows how to keep the reader in suspense and how to hook him and pull him rapidly through this book. I'm glad I read it and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good naval thriller.

Poyer strikes another home run with this latest thriller set in the Eastern Sea between Korea and Japan. Commander Dan Lenson acting as a TAC officer finds himself once again in the center of intrigue and action, cut off from all communication aboard a ROK flag ship. If you are looking for a real page turner, military intrigue and a throughly captivating protagonist in Cmdr. Lenson, you will not be disappointed in this narrative.