Description de l’éditeur
Twenty years ago, the KGB planted an agent in the American Navy. Today he is the commander of an American nuclear attack submarine!
Wayne Newell is all-Navy, all-American, all-traitor. A graduate of the Soviet "Charm School," Newell is captain of the nuclear attack submarine USS Pasadena, now patrolling beneath the Pacific. He's convinced his crew that the world is at war — and that the Russians have a deadly masking device that makes Soviet submarines sound exactly like the most crucial ships in the American fleet: the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines known as Boomers. The subs that Pasadena detects may sound American — but they're the enemy and must be destroyed. The deception has begun...
In a world of darkness, super-sensitive listening devices and nerve-wracking tension, Newell's crew is being driven to the breaking point, cut off from communications, forced to destroy "enemy" subs in a war they can't confirm. And while the U.S. Pacific Command scrambles to find out who is attacking their fleet, two American submarines must go to war — against an aggressor who knows their every move, and is rapidly destroying America's sea-based strategic nuclear defense.
"Technically brilliant...plus the added bonus of strong characters and an intelligent plot." — Nelson DeMille
"Taylor rachets the suspense well past the breaking point...BOOMER is a hell of a fine sea story!" — Stephen Coonts
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Taylor's ( War Ship ) military thriller might have stayed afloat if he hadn't leaked most of his secrets in the first 50 pages. Wayne Newell, the competent, confident commander of the attack submarine USS Pasadena , is a Russian agent, planted in the Navy 20 years ago. Claiming knowledge of a masking device that makes Soviet subs indistinguishable from American ones and supported by bogus communications, Newell directs his crew to torpedo two American nuclear submarines called boomers. Navy chiefs, knowing only that the boomers have vanished, order in the USS Manchester , a twin of Pasadena , to fill the defense gap. From then on, aside from watching the Pasadena 's crew succumb to stress as they begin to suspect they are indeed sinking American vessels, and Newell losing his mental balance for reasons that are less clear, much time is spent waiting for lumbering bureaucracies (both U.S. and Soviet) to catch up with what the reader already knows so the subs can get to their final underwater battle. ( June )
