This is an old fashion story of combat. The story has elements of submarine warfare. The Star Wolf series reflects Gerrold's contention that, due to the distances involved, space battles would be more like submarine hunts than the dogfights usually portrayed—in most cases the ships doing battle wouldn't even be able to see each other. Storyline is similar to Glen Cook's Passage at Arms,and the Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk. David Gerrold is able to give the reader the intimate experience the claustrophobia,and tension that are the essence men locked in a slow moving but desperate battle with a superior enemy. The book is part 1 of 4 books is the Star Wolf series. Each book is a complete story in and of itself. At the actor suggests reading then in the following order Star Hunt also known as Yesterdays Children, The voyage of the Star Wolf, The Middle of Nowhere, and the final book in the series Blood and fire.
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This is a story line which I've seen several times. It closely parallels the plot from the movie "The Enemy Below" starring Robert Mitchum and Curd Jurgens, which remains one of my favorite WWII war movies. A similar plot appeared during the first season of Star Trek TOS as "Balance of Terror," which was one of my favorite episodes from that series.

Some elements of the story seemed a little contrived, but the book remains memorable, more than thirty years later. I think that one of the things that impressed me about the book and the earlier stories I mentioned was that most of the story tension comes not from action, but from the tension of fighting an enemy that, initially at least, may or may not exist. As the stories develop, the tension is between two capable foes who are hunting each other. It takes a skilled writer to pull that off. ( )

This novel has its genesis in a Star Trek script that Paramount rejected. Gerrold took it back, reworked it into a novel, and added layers of grunge and a starship falling apart at the seams to make the story of a captain persuing the phantom image of his own ship work. ( )

Hm... space navy with a heavy overlay of psychological gameplaying. The deliberately manipulative gameplaying doesn't seem very plausible to me in this context - any naval officers care to comment?