Arctic Sea: A Dan Lenson Novel

The pace slows a bit in Poyer’s placeholding 21st military action thriller featuring U.S. Navy officer Dan Lenson (after 2020’s Violent Peace) now that the four-year war with China has ended and Dan has been reduced back to captain after his wartime rank of admiral. Several major American cities have been destroyed, major stretches of the Midwest are contaminated with radiation, and the country is stricken with riots, looting, disease, famine, and revolts against the government. Dan is fighting radiation exposure and working at the Pentagon on a less-than-compelling study of postwar force structure. With Russia undamaged by the recent war and expanding militarily into the Arctic Circle, Dan is assigned to explore the North Slope of Alaska for possible locations for a U.S. naval base. His wife, Blair Titus, continues her political work in Washington, D.C., and his daughter, Nan, is back working as a virologist in the rebel-held areas. There are still plenty of deadly adventures, including a couple of set pieces that are the same as in Violent Peace, and in the end the nation’s future is hanging by a thread. Series fans wouldn’t have it any other way. (Nov.)