Arctic Sea
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 21)
“One of the outstanding bodies of nautical fiction during the last half-century.” – Booklist
“Poyer knows what he is writing about when it comes to anything on, above or below the water.” – New York Times Book Review
Probably my most popular and well known novels are set at sea, in the Pentagon, and in other military locales. Welcome to Dan Lenson’s home page and to my homage to and memories of the sailors, officers, and families of today’s Navy and Marine Corps.
Some fans have asked if the order of publication is the same as the flow of time within the books. My answer is: usually, but not always! I try to craft each book so it stands alone. But if you prefer to read a series in order, I recommend proceeding as follows: The Circle, The Med, The Passage, Tomahawk, The Gulf, China Sea, Black Storm, The Command, The Threat, Korea Strait, The Weapon, The Crisis, The Towers, The Cruiser, Tipping Point, Onslaught, Hunter Killer, Deep War, Overthrow, and Violent Peace. (Next up will be Arctic Sea, December 2021.)
The Med, The Gulf, the Circle, and The Passage have just been reissued in new trade paper. To order personally inscribed hardcovers, see “First Editions”. All are still in print from Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, New York, and available in ebook and audio form as well. Order them through any bookstore or online retailer.
Violent Peace: The War with China – Aftermath of Armageddon
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 20)
“One of the outstanding bodies of nautical fiction during the last half-century.” – Booklist
“Poyer knows what he is writing about when it comes to anything on, above or below the water.” – New York Times Book Review
Probably my most popular and well known novels are set at sea, in the Pentagon, and in other military locales. Welcome to Dan Lenson’s home page and to my homage to and memories of the sailors, officers, and families of today’s Navy and Marine Corps.
Some fans have asked if the order of publication is the same as the flow of time within the books. My answer is: usually, but not always! I try to craft each book so it stands alone. But if you prefer to read a series in order, I recommend proceeding as follows: The Circle, The Med, The Passage, Tomahawk, The Gulf, China Sea, Black Storm, The Command, The Threat, Korea Strait, The Weapon, The Crisis, The Towers, The Cruiser, Tipping Point, Onslaught, Hunter Killer, Deep War, Overthrow, and Violent Peace. (Next up will be Arctic Sea, December 2021.)
The Med, The Gulf, the Circle, and The Passage have just been reissued in new trade paper. To order personally inscribed hardcovers, see “First Editions”. All are still in print from Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, New York, and available in ebook and audio form as well. Order them through any bookstore or online retailer.
Overthrow: The War with China and North Korea – Fall of an Empire
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 19)
The United States and their Allied forces struggle to survive world war with China in this compelling, realistic thriller, the next in the Dan Lenson series.
World War III continues in Overthrow, the next novel in the acclaimed series featuring Admiral Dan Lenson as the Allies converge against China, North Korea, and Iran in an explosive series of events. Admiral Lenson leads Operation Rupture, the invasion of South China, in a bid to finally end the war and restore peace. Meanwhile, Captain Cheryl Staurulakis fights to take a radical new “super ship” to sea, though its power and capability may introduce more risk than reward.
In Washington, Dan’s wife Blair conducts secret negotiations with a rebellious faction in Beijing, hoping to bring an end to the war, but her plans may be foiled by those who want outright revenge on China, not peace with them. In western China, Teddy Oberg’s guerrilla band grows into a major insurgency, and the former SEAL master chief embraces his new role as an Islamic resistance leader. Sergeant Hector Ramos raises the flag of freedom in Taiwan while fighting his own personal demons, and in Seattle Dan’s daughter, Nan Lenson, fights to save the world from a dangerous new epidemic.
But as the Allies plot an endgame to the war, the complicated dance of global warfare, on land and at sea, will finally trigger the nuclear Armageddon the entire world has feared for nearly a century.
Deep War: The War with China–The Nuclear Precipice
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 18)
The war against China turns dire, as the United States struggles to survive in this gripping thriller featuring Navy commander Dan Lenson
After the United States suffers a devastating nuclear attack, and facing food shortages, power outages, cyber and AI assaults, and a wrecked economy, Admiral Dan Lenson leads an allied force assigned to turn the tide of war in the Pacific, using precisely targeted missiles and high-tech weapons systems.
But as the campaign begins, the entire Allied military and defense network is compromised—even controlled—by Jade Emperor, a powerful Chinese artificial intelligence system that seems to anticipate and counter every move. While Dan strives to salvage the battle plan, his wife Blair helps coordinate strategy in Washington, DC, Marine sergeant Hector Ramos fights in an invasion of Taiwan, and Navy SEAL master chief Teddy Oberg begins a desperate journey into central China on a mission that may be the only way to save the United States from destruction and defeat.
Thrilling, filled with near-future technology, and deeply grounded in the human cost of war, David Poyer’s Deep War is a brilliant novel by an acknowledged master of military fiction.
Hunter Killer: The War with China – The Battle for the Central Pacific
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 17)
World War with China explodes in Hunter Killer, David Poyer’s dramatic new thriller. The United States stands nearly alone in its determination to fight, rather than give into the expansionist demands of the aggressive new “People’s Empire.” The naval and air forces of the Associated Powers – China, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea – have used advanced technology and tactical nuclear weapons to devastate America’s fleet in the Pacific, while its massive army forced humiliating surrenders on Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other crucial allies.
Admiral Dan Lenson, commanding a combined US–South Korean naval force, and Commander Cheryl Staurulakis of USS Savo Island fight to turn the tide and prepare for an Allied counteroffensive. Meanwhile, SEAL operator Teddy Oberg escapes from a hellish POW camp and heads west through desolate mountains toward what he hopes will be freedom. Hector Ramos, an unwilling recruit, learns the Marine Corps has an ethos all its own. And in Washington, DC, Dan’s wife Blair Titus helps formulate America’s political response to overwhelming setbacks in the Pacific and at on the home front.
Filled with dramatic battle scenes, from ship, submarine, and air warfare to desperate hand-to-hand Marine Corps combat, and informed by the author’s own background as a Navy captain and defense analyst, Hunter Killer is a powerful, all-too-believable novel about how the next world war might unfold.
Onslaught: The War with China – The Opening Battle
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 16)
Onslaught chronicles Captain Dan Lenson’s latest challenge as the U.S. Navy struggles to hold Taiwan, Korea, and Japan against a massive Chinese offensive. The prize: domination of Asia and the Western Pacific.
As the United States’ computer, satellite, and financial networks are ravaged by coordinated cyberwar attacks, China and its Associated Powers begin to roll up and intimidate American allies, launching invasions of India, Taiwan, South Korea, and Okinawa. USS Savo Island, captained by Lenson, is one of the few forces left to stop them. But with a crew under attack from an unknown assailant aboard their own ship, and rapidly running out of ordnance against waves of enemy missiles and torpedoes, can Dan and his scratch-team task force hold the line? Or will the U.S. lose the Pacific—and perhaps much more—to an aggressive and expansionist new People’s Empire?
The most explosive novel yet in the long-running Dan Lenson series, David Poyer’s Onslaught follows Tipping Point to unfold an utterly convincing scenario of how a global war with China could unfold.
Tipping Point: The War with China – The First Salvo
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 15)
The fifteenth novel in David Poyer’s acclaimed series of naval adventures featuring Dan Lenson, Tipping Point is an action-packed, utterly authentic story of duty, war, and the stress of command, by the most popular living author of American sea fiction.
Captain Dan Lenson is under fire both at sea, and in Washington. His command of the first antiballistic-missile-capable cruiser in the Fleet, USS Savo Island, is threatened when he’s called home to testify before Congress. There, he must defend his controversial decision to prevent a massive retaliatory missile attack by Israel against civilian targets in the Mideast.
Shaken by the near-end of his career, Lenson returns to command uncertain of his own future, but determined to do his best by a damaged ship and an increasingly divided crew. Ordered to the Indian Ocean, Savo cruises off East Africa, protecting shipping lanes from pirates. But this seemingly-routine patrol turns ominous when an unknown assailant begins assaulting female crew members.
But then, an explosive showdown begins between India and Pakistan…with Savo Island, and her unique but not yet fully battle-ready ability to intercept ballistic missiles, standing alone between two nations on the brink of the first theater nuclear war. Dan will have to battle tsunami-driven seas, incoming weapons, and a quickly tilting balance of power, as China moves inexorably in her bid to displace America in the far Pacific.
The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 14)
Newly-promoted to Captain, Dan Lenson’s first glimpse of his command is of a ship literally high and dry. The USS Savo Island, which carries a classified, never-before-deployed missile defense system, has run aground on an exposed sandbar off Naples. Captain Lenson has to relieve the ship’s disgraced skipper and deploy on a secret mission—Operation Stellar Shield—which will take his ship and crew into the dangerous waters bordering the Middle East.
As a climate of war builds between Israel and Iraq, with threats of nuclear and chemical weapons, Dan has to rally Savo Island’s demoralized crew, confront a mysterious death on board ship, while learning to operate a complex missile system that has not been battle tested. But when the conflict reaches a climax, Dan is forced to make a decision that may cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives—or may save them, but at the cost of his ship and his career.
Filled with dramatic sea adventure, authentic weapons and technology, and distinguished by Poyer’s deep understanding of duty and the moral choices made in combat, The Cruiser is the fourteenth novel to feature Dan Lenson in military service that carries him throughout the world.
The Towers: A Dan Lenson Novel of 9/11
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 13)
After surviving the attacks on September 11, 2001, Dan Lenson finds himself quickly drawn into a covert SEAL team in search of the terrorists responsible. Their mission: kill Osama Bin Laden.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Commander Dan Lenson is visiting the Pentagon, and his wife is at a job interview at the World Trade Center. In the action-packed scenes that follow, Dan fights his way through flames and destruction to safety, and tries to reach his wife on her cell phone, but the terrifying few seconds before they’re cut off do nothing to calm his fears.
Dan immediately becomes involved in the military reaction to the attack. His SEAL team is assigned to Task Force Rhino, a mission that takes him to Afghanistan and the borders of Pakistan in order to hunt down, capture, or kill Osama bin Laden and other senior members of the Taliban government and al Qaeda leadership.
The 13th Dan Lenson novel, The Towers is a fascinating, accurate depiction of the events of September 11 and the military response, informed by sources in the Navy, the SEALS, the NCIS, and the author’s own military experience. Full of fast-paced sequences and heart-pumping drama, David Poyer takes the reader into the center of the action and face-to-face with the terrorist enemy.
The Crisis: A Dan Lenson Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 12)
Naval Commander Dan Lenson and his Tactical Analysis Group specialize in out of the box military assign ments. Comprising sailors, Navy SEALS, and civilians, the group investigates and defuses naval threats around the world.
Dan and his team are assigned to “transform” a patrol craft squadron in the Red Sea into a leaner, meaner Navy. Mean – while, in northern Africa, drought and famine have brought a nation to the brink of civil war. When the United States decides on intervention to stabilize the region, Dan and his team become the point people for the humanitarian mission. When a charismatic young jihadist coordinates a ferocious insur gency against the U.S. presence, Dan and his team must kill him in order to save thousands of lives.
With exciting action, espionage, and exotic locales, The Crisis asks bigger questions about our obligations to relieve the suffering of other countries, the risk of American lives to rescue foreigners, and the role of democratic government in nations with no central leadership.
The Weapon: A Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 11)
A deadly new weapon hits the international arms market—and the only way to preserve the balance of power in the Mideast is to hijack the Iranian sub that carries it.
United States Navy Commander and Medal of Honor winner Dan Lenson has been handed another outside-the-box assignment. TAG Charlie, an elite team of active-duty sailors, SEALs, and civilian analysts, is tasked to investigate and defuse emerging naval threats around the globe. When the Skhval-K—an unstoppable rocket torpedo designed to destroy U.S. aircraft carriers—is demonstrated at a Moscow arms show, Dan tries to buy one so that the U.S. Navy can build countermeasures. But he’s lucky to escape with his life when he’s set up by Russia’s new counterespionage service.
When the Russians sell the new weapon to Iran and China instead, Dan decides that if he can’t buy it, he’ll steal it. But when a daring nighttime penetration of Iran’s largest naval base goes wrong too, Dan finds himself captaining a submarine he barely knows how to submerge, pursued by Iranian destroyers and sub-hunting aircraft through the shallow, hazardous Persian Gulf.
Authentic action and daring espionage combine in a timely thriller set in a hair-trigger military environment.
Korea Strait: A Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 10)
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 next major war might begin.
The Threat: A Dan Lenson Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 9)
From the bestselling author of The Circle, The Med, The Gulf, The Passage, Tomahawk, China Sea, Black Storm, and The Command . . . a heartstopping thriller of danger and conspiracy at the highest levels of command and government.
Medal of Honor winner Commander Dan Lenson wonders who proposed that he be assigned to the White House military staff. It’s a dubious honor—serving a president the Joint Chiefs hate more than any other in modern history.
Lenson reports to the West Wing to direct a multiservice team working to interdict the flow of drugs from Latin America. Never one to just warm a chair, he sets out to help destroy the Cartel—and uncovers a troubling thread of clues that link cunning and ruthless drug lord Don Juan Nuñez to an assault on a nuclear power plant in Mexico, an obscure Islamic relief agency in Los Angeles, and an air cargo company’s imminent flight plan across the United States.
Lenson has to battle civilian aides and his own distaste for politics to derail a terrorist strike over the Mexican border. His punishment for breaking the rules to do so is to be sent to the East Wing . . . as the military aide carrying the nuclear “football,” the locked briefcase with the secret codes for a nuclear strike, for a president he suspects is having an affair with his wife.
And something else is going on beneath the day-to-day turmoil and backstabbing. As his marriage deteriorates and his frustration with Washington builds, Lenson becomes an unwitting accomplice in a dangerous and subversive conspiracy. The U.S. military is responsible for its Commander in Chief’s transportation and security. If someone felt strongly enough about it . . . it would be easy for the president to die.
The Command: A Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 8)
After receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for action in Iraq, Commander Daniel V. Lenson’s new orders read: take over as skipper of USS Thomas W. Horn. His mission: prepare the Tomahawk-equipped strike destroyer and her crew for the Red Sea, where she’ll join an international task force searching for weapons of mass destruction.
But this will be no routine deployment. Horn will be the first US Navy warship ever to deploy with an integrated male and female crew-a controversial and politically explosive experiment that will raise questions about morale, behavior, training, sexual attraction, and ultimately, performance under fire. Facing sandstorms, smugglers, and ambushes, Horn’s increasingly polarized crew will conduct demanding, diplomatically sensitive search-and-seizure operations against foreign vessels attempting to smuggle arms to Iraq. But the real nightmare’s brewing in Bahrain. There, the most dangerous bomb expert in Al-Qaeda has targeted Horn for attack- as the first step in a plan to redraw the map of the whole Middle East.
With gripping action scenes and an explosive climax, The Command continues Dan Lenson’s star-crossed career in a series that explores both global and deeply personal implications of honor, duty, power, and war.
Black Storm: A Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 7)
With blistering action sequences and incredibly detailed military insight, Black Storm takes the reader along with the most covert Special Ops group straight to Saddam Hussein’s stronghold, through harrowing instances of close-quarters combat, and into the heart of danger.
A Maniacal Leader
With coalition forces amassing at the Iraqi border, Saddam Hussein issues a terrifying threat: In response to any Allied offense, he will use his most secret weapon to destroy Israel. Counting down the hours before their forces invade, American commanders must decide whether this threat is the last-minute posturing of a madman-or a calculated promise from one of the world’s most feared commanders.
An Impossible Mission
With thousands of innocent lives hanging in the balance, a long-range force reconnaissance team has been assembled and given the most daunting task: locate a weapon that no one can find or identify. Lieutenant Commander Dan Lenson, attached to the team to help program the airstrike that will cripple Saddam, finds himself humping through enemy territory with a group of hardened marines. They’re headed straight for central Baghdad in what will be the most dangerous operation of the war. Now Lenson must decide whether the secret he carries is worth the life of his teammates-and his own…
China Sea: A Thriller
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 6)
David Poyer’s cycle of modern Navy tales ranks among the finest nautical fiction of our time. With China Sea, his self-doubting protagonist Daniel V. Lenson faces for the first time the unforgiving challenge of command at sea.
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.”
Tomahawk: A Dan Lenson Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 5)
The bestselling novels of David Poyer have been read by millions around the world, and The New York Times Book Review has proclaimed: “Poyer knows what he is writing about when it comes to anything on, above or below the water.” Now he unleashes a heart-pounding new novel combining the thrilling elements of military intrigue, Pentagon politics, Chinese espionage and human drama in his finest work to date.
It was a missile that would change the world. He was the man at ground zero.
Once Lieutenant-commander Dan Lenson had a ship and a family. Now he is on his own, deep within Washington’s military industrial complex. His task: shepherd a controversial weapon through the Navy’s testing process to deployment. But powerful forces are lined up against the Tomahawk missile– and against Lenson. For Dan Lenson, separating his enemies from his friends is the beginning of the most dangerous war of all…
The Passage: A Thriller
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 4)
The Navy’s most sophisticated destroyer, the USS Barrett carries a top-secret computer that can pilot an unmanned ship and send it into battle. As the weapons officer charged with its first mission Lieutenant Dan Lenson has a chance to make naval history.
But when the system develops a sinister virus and a sailor takes his own life amid ugly allegations, Lenson finds himself caught in a web of betrayal. Now, on the treacherous Windward Passage between the U.S. and Cuba, he’ll undergo the ultimate test of honor and faith– one that could cost him his career, his ship, and even his life.
The Circle: A Dan Lenson Novel
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 3)
Fresh from Annapolis, Dan Lenson boards an antiquated destroyer headed for the Arctic Circle, where he and the crew encounter a rogue sub, violent weather, and possible court martial. By the author of The Gulf. National ad/promo.
The Gulf: A Thriller
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 2)
Aboard the guided-missile frigate U.S.S. Turner Van Zandt, Lieutenant-Commander Dan Lenson and his dedicated crew take on a daring assignment: escort a convoy of supertankers through the mine-filled Persian Gulf.
For Lenson and his men, however, the danger is only just beginning. When a missile from a hit-and-run enemy sinks a U.S. destroyer, every ship and aircraft in the area goes on red alert.
As all hands prepare for the inevitable showdown with a hostile Middle Eastern nation, Benjamin Shaker, the destroyer’s hair-trigger captain, plots his own secret form of revenge. If he isn’t stopped, it could mean disaster for the entire Gulf region– and maybe the world!
The Med: A Thriller
(Dan Lenson Novels Book 1)
The sailors and Marines of the Sixth Fleet head for an explosive confrontation in Syria, where a terrorist group is holding about one hundred British and American hostages–including the family of mission coordinator Lt. Dan Lenson
DAVID POYER 