The Academy

October 16, 2023
The sturdy 22nd installment in Poyer’s series featuring Navy admiral Dan Lenson (after 2021’s Arctic Sea) sees Lenson taking his post as the new superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy. At first, Dan’s up for the challenge of rehabilitating the academy, which has been battered by falling applications, sky-high expenditures, and reports of sexual assault. Toss in the suspicious death of a senior midshipman and an impending hurricane, and his problems begin to seem insurmountable. Flashbacks to 40 years earlier recount Dan’s senior year at the academy, during which he was drawn into the investigation of a classmate’s apparent suicide, and provide context for his present-day strategies as a military leader and his approach to the midshipman investigation. Poyer’s irrepressible nostalgia for his own plebe days in Annapolis are a feature, not a bug: the flashback sections feel lived-in and immediate. Elsewhere, Poyer makes up for a lack of missiles, torpedoes, and enemy ships by generating top-notch suspense from the murder case and impending storm. This long-running naval series continues full-steam ahead.

November 1, 2023
In the twenty-second Dan Lenson nautical thriller, our hero's career takes a big turn when he becomes the new Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. But it's not exactly smooth sailing: after a war with China, Congress is slashing budgets for the military and calling for major reforms transforming how the American war machine operates. At the same time, Dan is being investigated for wartime activities, which may land him in serious trouble. But, when a hurricane threatens to destroy the Academy and the surrounding area, he becomes immersed in bigger concerns than his own career. The Lenson series is an intriguing alternate history saga, and Poyer, a retired naval officer, packs the books with realism and plausible scenarios for how current real-world technologies and political structures might play out. Here, we also get some of Dan's career backstory, with an account of how a classmate's suicide when Dan was a midshipman first class shaped his approach to leadership. Fans of the long-running series--the first book, The Med, appeared in 1988--will be well pleased.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.