Lt. Eric Matthews must help close down a drug ring big enough to make the Mafia gag, a gang that is not just selling heroin, but cutting the drug with poison and killing someone weekly. For the first time in his career he must serve undercover as an enlisted man-his advancement in rank requires such experience. He is assigned to the USS Hestek (nicknamed the "Old Haystack") to track a suspected drug user back to his supplier and then arrest him, even though the two become good friends. He has help from a team of other operatives, led by his team leader Captain Rena Skye, USMC, with whom he falls in love, but she is off-limits because she's his boss and because she's going through a divorce. Needle on the Haystack is not only a crime novel; it is a story about a naval officer in an unknown environment, who must overcome feelings of inadequacy and fight personal battles with his past. It is a tale of duty vs. compassion. Can Matthews and his fellow agents stop these criminals and save the Navy in Norfolk from this heroin scourge? Can Matthews find the needle on the Haystack?