Blackmail

In Campbell’s enthralling fourth military action thriller (after 2016’s Ice Station Nautilus), the Russians decide that the time is right to attack the U.S. because the U.S.’s navy has been seriously depleted by the war with China that was the focus of 2015’s Empire Rising. Russian president Yuri Kalinin decides to test the Americans by approving an assault on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in the western Pacific. When the U.S. doesn’t immediately retaliate after the Roosevelt is badly damaged, Kalinin thinks America has lost its resolve to fight and initiates a plan to take over Lithuania and Ukraine. In response, the U.S. attacks Russian naval forces off the coast of Iran; the Russians counterattack, and the war is on. The submarine and surface-ship battles are pitch-perfect, and readers will shudder with every missile strike and every exploding depth charge. They will also cheer as the U.S. president and his advisers, including series star Christine O’Connor, figure out a way for the outgunned American forces to prevail. Agent: John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (June)