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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Facing enemy subs and typhoons!, January 10, 2008
This review is from: Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) (Hardcover)
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)
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
exciting Korean thriller, December 15, 2007
This review is from: Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) (Hardcover)
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
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some of the best modern sub warfare detail this side of Tom Clancy, November 16, 2008
This review is from: Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) (Hardcover)
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.
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