China Sea (Dan Lenson Series #6)

Ordered to relieve an alcoholic skipper, Dan finds he has inherited a damaged ship, an untrustworthy crew, and an ambiguous mission. He is to take the USS Oliver C. Gaddis, soon to become the PNS Tughril, on her final voyage to be donated to Pakistan. But in Kirachi, Dan gets new orders: take Gaddis still further east, and operate against modern pirates preying on commercial shipping in the remote, dangerous South China Sea.

Pursuing an elusive and shadowy foe into an exotic, isolated world of hazardous reefs and tropical islands, Dan gradually discerns a larger purpose behind his supposed objective. Who are these "pirates?" What expansionist cunning supports them? Abandoned by the Navy, threatened by a mutinous crew, a murderous shipmate, and an approaching typhoon, Gaddis struggles to survive without crossing the shadow-line herself.

Filled with suspense, battle, and unforgettable descriptions of the sea's beauty and violence, CHINA SEA continues Dan Lenson's star-crossed career in what Booklist calls, "One of the outstanding bodies of nautical fiction during the last half-century."

Welcome to the most dangerous sea in the world...

Dan Lenson was taking the USS Gaddis on her final journey, turning her over to the Pakistani Navy. But things didn't go according to plan. Now Dan finds himself commanding an undermanned, under-gunned, strife-filed ship on the China Sea—and cut off from Naval command. The Gaddis is supposed to be patrolling against pirates. But with a monsoon bearing down on his ship, and his crew ready to explode, Dan knows the Gaddis has been turned into a renegade itself: to engage in a violent, secret shoot-out against the second most powerful nation on earth.

For Dan, a bizarre, treacherous mission has become a desperate journey of honor, character, and courage. For not only has the Gaddis been forced into a covert mission against China, she now has a murderer on board...

Vince Flynn

...a gripping,gritty novel that reads like the real thing...David Poyer knows his stuff.

David Poyer's naval career has included service in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic, Caribbean, and Pacific. His twenty novels have won praise from millions of readers around the world, and his sea fiction has been required reading in the Literature of the Sea course at the U.S. Naval Academy. China Sea is the sixth in his novel-cycle of the modern navy, following The Med, The Gulf, The Circle, The Passage, and Tomahawk (all available from St. Martin's Paperbacks). He lives with his wife and daughter in Virginia.