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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780312360498
ISBN number: 0312360495
Label: St. Martin's Press
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: December 10, 2007
Publishing house: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: December 10, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 386396
Studio: St. Martin's Press
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Product Description:
United States Navy officer and Medal of Honor winner Dan Lenson’s mission is to observe an international military exercise involving the navies of South Korea, Japan, Australia, and America.
It should be routine duty for Dan, but old alliances are unraveling, as North Korea threatens the U.S. and China expands its influence. Acting as both adviser and adversary to a ruthless South Korean task force commander, Dan must stop a wolfpack of unidentified submarines, armed with nuclear weapons, which is trying to elude Allied surveillance and penetrate the Sea of Japan. Is it the start of an invasion . . . or an elaborate feint, to divert attention from a devastating attack?
Battling faulty weapons, a complacent Washington establishment, and a fierce typhoon season at sea, Dan must act on his own---even if doing so means the end of his career, the lives of his observers, and the risk of nuclear war. Featuring fierce action at sea and political intrigue at the highest levels, Korea Strait is both a first-class thriller and a prescient look at how the subsequent major war might begin.
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Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers -
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 very 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.
Rated by buyers 
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My wife and I have very similar tastes in most things including books. In this book we differ. She didn't like the military jargon and (near) excessive detail -- and didn't finish the book.
I, on the other hand, almost never quit a book before the last page. While I admit it was not the best book I've read this year, I found it worthwhile. OK, that's not high praise, but . . .
Rated by buyers -
Dan is hurting. But the reader feels great. Dan is back at sea. You can smell it, taste it, experience the story. When the details get this exact, you know the author has been there. The reader gets to see things unable to be experienced any other way. Unless you enlist. Oh yeah, the world gets saved again.
Rated by buyers -
"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 very 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 subsequent 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.
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