One should not start a review on a personal note, but there it is. When reading this, I was struck by the notion, an alienating one that is, of feeling rather at odds with the author portraying the Chinese as enemies. Apart from that, Reeman delivers solid reading material that appeals to mostly males, I presume. It is an almost all-male show. This being said, there is a brief “interaction” between the protagonist, the captain of a nuclear submarine and a woman. Romantic brevity is to be expected for we all know that Reeman’s various captains reserve their true love for the large, thick-hulled military vessels they command. So, this is old school type British Royal Navy yarn of royal officers, bound by duty, making decisions larger than life itself, of sacrifices asked for and made by a crew that has is as foul-mouthed as it is daring and loyal? Well, fortunately, it is a helluva lot more complicated than that. There is the captain who is at odds with a WW2 relic of an admiral that he can’t avoid. There is a problematic father-son relationship with said admiral and one of the crew of the captains boat, then we have a hard as nails, at time even devious lone wolf first officer that is called Wolf, obviously not by accident. Last but not least, there is a murder kept secret at all costs. It all makes for an explosive mixture of circumstance on the HMS "Temeraire" the latest, most advanced nuclear submarine the Brits have of the imaginary “Polaris class” (Polaris is a nuclear missile, not a class of submarine – maybe I misheard …)To add to her troubles, as she hadn’t quite enough already, she is ordered north of the Yellow Sea, in a disputed area situated between 山东 province and North Korea to reinforce the fleet against a threat, perceived or not, from China.
All in all, the Silent Deep is a solid enough novel, even if it makes out the Chinese as “baddies”. But this is about writing not certain choices the author makes. And the author knows how to produce a good plot, characters and all. So, if you like the setting of sea and submarines, if you dig the navy and life on a ship, ahem.. boat, then give this a try. ( )