Anthony "Patch" Pacino Books in Order

Anthony Pacino takes over the family line, but this is not a simple handoff. He comes into the story with a famous surname, a harder modern battlefield, and very little room for error. This series follows a younger officer who has to prove he belongs in the same world that shaped his father, only now the missions are even more secret and the technology is even stranger.

Dark Transit sets the tone. Anthony reports to the ultra-secret USS Vermont, a project boat whose orders come from the very top of the American government. The job sounds clean on paper, stealing a revolutionary Russian submarine being tested by an Iranian crew, but DiMercurio has no interest in easy victories. The mission becomes a deniable, brutal undersea fight where survival matters as much as success.

The later books widen the danger without losing that close, crew-level feel. In Panic Switch, Anthony is caught in the shadow of Russia's Belgorod and its nuclear armed Poseidon drones, with the action pushing under the polar ice. Ambush of the Dragon expands again, using Chinese reunification plans and great power retaliation to drive the story toward a much bigger war. Even when the strategy gets huge, the series keeps returning to the sounds, routines, and split second decisions inside the boat.

Anthony is brave, smart, and never handed an easy win.

A big part of the appeal is the father and son dynamic running under the action. Michael Pacino is still present in this era, not as the young commander from the earlier books, but as a senior figure whose choices and reputation shape Anthony's world. That gives the series an extra layer of pressure. Anthony is not only trying to defeat the enemy. He is also living with legacy, grief, loyalty to shipmates, and the knowledge that his name means something before he even opens his mouth.

The setting is modern and restless. These books deal with special missions, autonomous or semi-autonomous weapons, strategic blackmail, covert operations, and the kind of geopolitical brinkmanship that can turn one hidden contact into a world crisis. At the same time, DiMercurio keeps a strong interest in ordinary submarine life, the cramped compartments, the fatigue, the blunt humor, the way expertise becomes a form of trust.

So this series feels a little newer, a little sharper, and often a little meaner than the original Michael Pacino run. It is still very much DiMercurio, with technical detail, command pressure, and underwater chess matches at its core. But Anthony's books are also about inheritance, about what a young officer does with a legendary last name when the ocean is still unforgiving and the mission is still secret.