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Amazon.com Review

Veteran techno-thriller writer Robinson's fifth novel pairs Arnold Morgan, the aging but still powerful national security adviser who stars in the author's previous titles (, ) with a new young naval intelligence officer named Ramshawe--one of the few characters with more personality than the military hardware on which Robinson lavishes most of his attention in this somewhat pedestrian tale.

Ramshawe's commanding officer ignores his warnings about a Russian airplane carrying a lethal cargo of sea mines to a Chinese naval base and the subsequent movement of Chinese warships flying the flag of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, even when an American oil tanker explodes in the Persian Gulf. Unable to convince his Admiral that the events are connected, the junior hotshot ignores the chain of command and takes his suspicions to Morgan. When more oil tankers blow up and it becomes clear that the Chinese have mined the strait in order to drive oil prices up and destabilize the economy, Morgan deploys the U.S. Navy to the Gulf. Included in the force are a couple of SEAL teams on a submarine--but the sub is commanded by a deranged captain who believes he's the reincarnated spirit of the French naval officer defeated by Nelson at Trafalgar, so the SEALs are forced to stage a mutiny in order to carry out their mission. Meanwhile, it turns out China has another target in its sights, halfway around the world: its neighbor Taiwan. So the Taiwanese air force must fight off the attack on its territory with no help from the U.S. Navy, which is committed in the Gulf.

There's enough weaponry and military maneuvering here to keep fans of Clancy, Coonts, and Dale Brown happy, but it may be past time for the curmudgeonly Morgan to retire and let a new series hero like Ramshawe take over. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

The fifth in a series of naval techno-thrillers that includes Nimitz Class and H.M.S. Unseen, Robinson's latest offers little more than tired anti-Beijing paranoia and chest-thumping adulation of U.S. military might. It is the year 2007, and the U.S. national security adviser, Adm. Arnold Morgan (the curmudgeonly patriot who has graced all of Robinson's previous novels), is unhappily marking time. He has been persuaded to stay on past his planned retirement date by a jittery Joint Chiefs of Staff worried about the aging Republican president ("a complete flake"). Bored now because "the goddamned world's gone quiet," Morgan and a junior intelligence officer named Ramshawe are almost relieved to discover that devious Chinese admirals, familiar from previous installments, have teamed up with the mad mullahs of Tehran to hatch a dastardly plot: they have set up a massive minefield across the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, directly in the path of the world's oil tankers; destroying them will drive world oil prices through the stratosphere and derail the global economy. Of course, the navy's chain of command gets in the way of those alert enough to smell a rat, and Ramshawe's warnings go unheeded until tankers start going boom. At that point, Morgan deploys the bulk of naval forces to the Gulf, and the U.S. and China go to the brink again. Robinson's description of submarine operations is not as detailed as Tom Clancy's, and his portrayal of SEALs is not as realistically gritty as Richard Marcinko's, but he does pick up handily on real world tensions. Whether or not he triumphs and here he does not neither he nor his hero show signs of slowing down.

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