The Circle

Ensign Danel V. Lenson reports to his first ship, USS Reynolds Ryan, an aging destroyer. With a mixture of pride and fear, he heads with her into the Arctic Sea in winter. Her orders -- to find the worst storm she can, and stay in it. Ryan's crew is drawn into pursuit of a rogue Soviet missile sub. But her most dangerous foe is within, and after her fiery loss at sea in a disastrous collision Dan confronts it in a secret court-martial deep in the bowels of the Pentagon. This is the novel that sees so deeply into the Navy psyche and the demands of life at sea that it is required reading in the Literature of the Sea course at Annapolis.