THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501240503
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BILL ROACH
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
THE PASSAGE
DAVID POYER
St. Martin's Press. 528 pp. $22.95.
LT. DAN LENSON is back in action in another Navy thriller from Virginian David Poyer. This is the fourth novel in the Lenson series, and it is by far the most complex as it tackles several current problems in Navy life and naval science.
Poyer, a Naval Academy graduate who has served on surface ships in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Arctic seas, produces powerful drama in his sea tales. Rather than ``category'' novels, they are well-plotted conflicts of the 1990s that happen to take place in a Navy setting.
In The Passage, Lenson is serving on a destroyer, the Barrett, in the Caribbean. In that context, Poyer delivers a jam-packed plot that enfolds a Cuban-American faceoff, with a Cuban raft exodus; homosexuality aboard ship; and an apparent computer virus that infects the ship's weapons. He then complicates and escalates it by uncovering espionage and ultimately an attempted mutiny.
That's just the obvious ``action.'' Along with it comes a forceful picture of life aboard ship as the vessel struggles to complete its readiness trials and cope with stormy waters off Cuba, and then becomes part of a patchwork task force dealing with a Cuban-Soviet threat just 30 miles from U.S. territory.
Poyer provides an interesting mix of characters, from the skipper, Cmdr. Thomas Leighty, to Graciela Gutierrez, a pregnant Cuban refugee who attempts to make the raft trip from Cuba to the States. There is also conniving Chief Warrant Officer Jay Harper; a civilian ``egg head,'' Dr. Henry (Hank) Shrobo; and the executive officer of the ship, Cmdr. George Vysotsky. These well-developed and complex characters are further surrounded by a variety of shipboard types.
While the novel focuses on the shipboard problems, Poyer also creates a remarkable picture of the arduous life on a Cuban sugar cooperative. It is easy to see how workers' hopelessness would lead to the surge of homemade rafts that heads for America.
The Cuban refugee plight is just one of many subplots that Poyer develops. He also invokes some unpleasant memories, such as the Walker spy scandal.
And then there is the issue of gays in the military. By having his commanding officer be homosexual and successful, Poyer appears to come down in favor of an open-enlistment policy. But he also raises a number of problems that acknowledged homosexuality might cause men living in crowded conditions aboard ship.
The Passage is not a novel that will be universally liked. Its off-duty Navy language may offend some. The way that the gay issue is treated will anger others. And spies in the service will irritate those who like to think that our military people are patriotic and perfect. Poyer doesn't flinch in showing us the problems of too little pay, of torn marriages, of long periods at sea, of the interplay among people with different upbringings, educations, faiths and interests.
Where other writers of sea thrillers succeed with escapism, Poyer succeeds with realism. Poyer's previous novels - The Gulf and The Med, in particular - are superbly crafted war stories; The Passage is a superbly crafted story about people in the most stressing of life situations.
- MEMO: Bill Roach is a retired naval officer in Jacksonville, Fla., who
formerly served in the Norfolk area. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BILL SIKES
David Poyer's ``The Passage'' is his fourth novel in the series
starring Navy Lt. Dan Lenson.
by CNB