Jerry Mitchell, the new captain of the equally new USS North Dakota (SSN-784), witnesses the start of a war that nobody in the U.S. knew anything about.
While trailing a Chinese nuclear attack sub, North Dakota watches as the Chinese boat torpedoes a Vietnamese merchant ship, which explodes violently immediately after being hit. Stunned by this blatant act of war, Mitchell and his crew are also perplexed by the Vietnamese merchant that wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and was obviously not carrying its declared cargo of coal.
These two mysteries are the opening parts of a war that blindsided the U.S. - one that had started with Vietnam and China, but quickly expanded to include almost all the nations in the western Pacific. Bound together in the new “Littoral Alliance,” they begin a covert submarine campaign determined to cripple China’s economy before China can launch its own secret plan to seize not just the South China Sea, but also eventually the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea.
Pulled back to Guam, Jerry Mitchell and the rest of Submarine Squadron Fifteen are ordered into the fray, to find out what is happening and why. The opening stages of the campaign take China by complete surprise, and in just a few days, the combined submarine forces of the Littoral Alliance sink dozens of Chinese tankers. Refineries are destroyed by cruise missile strikes, and finally a blockade is imposed, all while the U.S. is struggling to unravel the war’s underlying causes and goals.
Both China and the Littoral Alliance are determined to win, no matter what the cost, and as each side increases the level of violence, they approach a dangerous tipping point, one that nobody wants to see reached. In a final gambit, the president adopts a radical suggestion proposed by Mitchell, but many doubt even that will be enough to stop the fighting, and it comes with its own risks. In a race against time, the submarines of Squadron Fifteen return to war zone to execute their mission before the world sees either an economic catastrophe, or worse, a nuclear exchange.

About the Authors:
Larry Bond is 63 and lives with his wife Jeanne in Virginia, outside Washington DC. After co-authoring Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy, he has teamed with several different authors to write eighteen novels: Five with Pat Larkin, starting with Red Phoenix, eight with Jim deFelice, The First Team and Red Dragon Rising series, and five with Chris Carlson, including the Jerry Mitchell series, and his latest book, Lash-Up. Five have been New York Times bestsellers.
He has also co-designed the Admiralty Trilogy series games, which include Harpoon, Command at Sea, and Fear God & Dread Nought. All three have won industry awards.
Larry’s only nonfiction work is The Mighty Fallen, in collaboration with the photographer f-stop Fitzgerald. A photographic visit to military memorials in the United States and Canada, Larry’s introduction and text accompany f-stop’s stunning photographs of monuments honoring the service and sacrifices made by America’s veterans.
A U.S. Navy veteran, Larry was a Surface Warfare officer before leaving the Navy in 1982. He then worked as a naval analyst for defense consulting firms in the Washington, DC area. He now writes and designs games full-time. Larry is an avid wargamer and modeler.

Christopher Carlson is a retired Navy Reserve Captain and Department of Defense naval systems engineer. He began his navy career as a submariner, and transitioned to the naval technical intelligence field in both the reserves and in his civilian job with the Defense Intelligence Agency.
He has co-authored several published works with Larry Bond, to include a short story, Burial at Sea, in the Tombs anthology, and four full-length novels, Dangerous Ground, Cold Choices, Exit Plan, and Shattered Trident.