Teresa Nielsen Hayden had mentioned Tiger Cruise, by Douglas Morgan, a while ago, but it was then only out in hardcover. At the Tor party at Boskone [*], I saw that it had been released in paper, and so later picked it up (oh, and the cover typo—pointed out by a Tor employee, never say people in publishing have no sense of humor—has been fixed, at least in my copy).
[Edited 10/2003 to add: it can now be revealed that Douglas Morgan is a pseudonym of James D. Macdonald, of Mageworlds and The Apocalypse Door fame. So, even more reason to go read it . . .]
In Tiger Cruise, pirates attempt to capture the U.S.S. Cushing during a typhoon, while it has a bunch of civilian relatives on board (the Tigers); meanwhile, Australia sends a team to keep terrorists from getting their hands on Cushing‘s nuclear weapons, by any means necessary. This is a perfect commuting or beach book: brisk, suspenseful, not a whole lot of characterization (though I was pleased to see it avoid at least one cliché that Tom Clancy would have dove headfirst for), but amusing and with enough authentic feel in the details of Navy life that you still respect yourself in the morning. Good clean fun and recommended.
[*] Tangent: Where people kept asking me if I was connected to Tor somehow. (“No, I just read a lot of their books.”) I was slightly baffled, though, at people wondering if I was an editor, since my instinctive reaction to that was, “Are you kidding? I’m far too young.” Alas, I was jolted a bit later with the realization of why people might have thought that plausible: Jenna Felice, who passed away a year ago, was a full editor at 21 and just a bit older than I am now when she died. Eep. I had been sorry to hear about her death, though I did not know her; this was just a small, personal reminder of life’s frequent innate suckitude.