Descending from Duty

The Great Lakes come under siege when a skilled group of mercenaries seize renowned WWII submarine USS Silversides and take her out for one last mission; a tour of duty against the very government that once commanded her.

She's out there stalking the Great Lakes... Seventy years ago vintage fleet boat submarine USS Silversides sent 90,000 tons of Japanese steel to the bottom. Now mercenaries have re-commissioned her in a bloody campaign, and only Warren McCallum, former United States President, knows the reason. But McCallum isn't talking, and lead security agent Dylan Reese has his suspicions as to why. When a pattern emerges from the marauders' attacks those suspicions are confirmed, and Dylan realizes that before this nightmare can end, he and McCallum must confront the assassins face to face.

Born in Ohio and transplanted to Michigan at the age of six, author J. Ryan Fenzel has always had a story to tell. Although a desire to write put a pencil in his hand early , his literary trajectory was altered by a more traditional career path. Fenzel earned a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Industrial Operations at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, which helps explain the techno-slant his stories typically employ. His passion for writing survived higher education, a career in industrial controls, and process engineering, where creative efforts were limited to technical manuals and training materials. With the new millennium Fenzel put forth a concerted effort to return to his lifelong ambition. Writing took center stage in a serious way it hadn’t before. Early success came with a short fantasy/mystery story, The Grifters of Gildmoor, picked up for publication by a small Midwestern pulp magazine. He went on to create two series characters, speculative detective John Gerard and contemporary detective Nelson Brady, who have provided him serial success in regional mystery and SF magazines. Fenzel's breakout work is Descending from Duty (Ironcroft 2006), a Great Lakes submarine thriller released in '06 and still patrolling regional bookstores with a devoted following. Fenzel followed up his freshman effort with a sweeping Great Lakes treasure tale, Inherit All Things (Ironcroft 2009), which also gained regional acclaim. The success of Inherit All Things led to a second book in what has become the Jack Sheridan Series. Allied In Irons (Ironcroft 2012) follows maritime salvor Jack Sheridan as he undertakes a desperate search for the lost wreckage of Northwest Orient Flight 2501 amid elements of conspiracy and adventure.