Scorpion In The Sea is the debut novel from retired US Navy Captain and destroyer skipper PT Deutermann. A blatant example of Write What You Know and Author Tract, the novel follows the exploits of a maverick destroyer skipper who tries to find and neutralize a Libyan submarine before it can launch a devastating attack - a sub the rest of the navy doesn’t believe even exists.
Commander Michael Montgomery is a nonconformist among the surface warfare fleet based in Naval Station Mayport Florida. Unlike the typical Annapolis graduate who spent his entire career onboard “tin cans”, Mike is a NROTC graduate and former riverine gunboat skipper with multiple tours of Vietnam. He lives in a houseboat, keeps a profanity squawking parrot onboard ship and doesn’t play the usual political game. His ship the aging WW2 vintage destroyer Goldsborough is starting to fall apart at the seams and Mike fights a constant battle with the shipyard to keep her deployment ready. He investigates a few scattered reports of “sea monster” sightings by fisherman, anticipating it to be a Snipe Hunt, but when a trawler capsizes, Mike thinks there might be something prowling the Gulf Coast. His nemesis is staff officer J W Martinson, a Captain bucking for a promotion to Admiral, whose bored wife takes a romantic interest in Mike. As he investigates further, he suspects that this phantom threat is a hard to detect Kilo class diesel electric attack submarine - which may be looking to launch a crippling attack on the US Navy in the vicinity.
Tropes positively identified here are
- Abandon Ship: The crew of the Goldsborough must bail out after being hit by a torpedo.
- Alliterative Name: Michael Montgomery.
- Armchair Military: Captain Martinson only went to sea because it would help in career advancement. He’d prefer to remain ashore.
- Epic Ship On Sub Action: The Libyan sub vs the USS Coral Sea. Then Goldsborough vs the Libyan Sub.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Martinson’s cheating on Diane with a female staff officer is presented as bad. Diane’s cheating on him with Mike is seen as good.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: The Navy doesn’t want to believe that a Libyan sub could penetrate naval patrols and make it all the way to the Gulf Coast.
- Houseboat Hero: Mike.
- Inter-Service Rivalry: More like inter-branch rivalry within the US Navy. Mike and the other Surface Warfare Officers (ship drivers) complain that the Aviators on the carrier will ignore their warning about an enemy sub unless they “send some interesting pictures to get their attention”.
- Military Maverick: Mike Montgomery isn’t an academy grad, he lives in a houseboat, he brings a swearing parrot with him on deployments and had volunteered for the riverine gunboat force in Nam specifically to see action.
- Sea Monster: What the local fishermen think the Libyan sub is.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Martinson to Mike. Before Mike sleeps with his wife.
- Taking You with Me: The Libyan sub fires it’s last torpedo at the Goldsborough as it is being sunk.
