Dark Winter [Paperback]

The book rides mostly on the enclosed paranoia that infects the base's inhabitants, as their friends--and enemies--start turning up dead in various unpleasant ways. Pre-established rivalries, simmering animosities, and edgy idiosyncrasies (there are some strange people sequestered at the Pole in this tale) all lead an intrepid reader to start trying to make sense of the body count. I tried to be intrepid. But the book's other hook acts as a smokescreen: more and more our main character, Jed Lewis, emerges as the chief suspect. A secret reason has been revealed for his arrival at the Pole--something to do with a potentially valuable object that has been brought up out of the ice, an object that could prompt someone to kill. Jed also has a remarkable talent for happening upon dead people, with nary an alibi to prove he didn't cause the body to be there in the first place.

So is it a smokescreen? As the surviving members of the facility began to gang up on Jed, I found myself wondering if the grand trick of the book would turn out to be that our central character was a homicidal maniac. There is, of course, a trick, though before the killer is revealed there's lots of time to sift the evidence, and pick the murderer out of the crowd. Though noways certain, I'm honest when I say my suspicions had landed on a certain individual before the big revelation, and I was right (a rarity).

I really enjoyed this harrowing stay at an isolated, disintegrating Antarctic base where a cunning killer lurks, but when all is said and done...this book is pretty linear in its plot, and frankly, I'm not sure anything happens here that really sets the story on its head. We have our successive murders at a locale with its own laws, where it's impossible to flee (re: Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None). And we have our puzzle: Who is doing the slaying? (re: any serial killer novel, where the culprit is successful both as killer and as grand, intelligent puppetmaster). The style is terrific, the dialogue is believable, the characters are strong and distinguishable from each other, and the sense of fear and distrust are always present. But I feel that all the above is applied to a routine plot. A solid plot--but a routine, linear plot that is polished up nicely so it sparkles while taking no risks. The ending, particularly, gives the standard unmasking, and action-oriented final confrontation, which exposes this gripping novel as not really a cut above. I am just not able to sit back and give a four or five-star review to a book that relies on such a familiar plot, even though everything supporting it is so splendid.

If you like thrillers, chances are you will like this book quite a lot. But on reflection of the various plot developments, does it really stand up there with the very best?

This is a tightly-written, deeply involving thriller, part murder mystery, part action-adventure, and all survival story. The characters are memorable and well-drawn, no mean feat given the size of the cast. Dietrich is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer for the Seattle Times and a real-life visitor of the famous international Antarctic base, giving his descriptions of living conditions in polar hell a keener edge than mere fiction. The suspense is excellent - though Dietrich could perhaps have made determining the killer's identity more difficult - and the action and the violence hold your attention, throughout.

I've read a great many polar adventure stories, from Alastair Maclean's "Ice Station Zebra" and John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (The Thing) to more recent entries like Matthew Reilly's "Ice Station" and Preston and Childs' "The Ice Limit," and of the lot, I'd have to rank this with Campbell's famous sci-fi action/adventure tale and "The Ice Limit" as the best-written and most memorable - in fact, Dietrich even pays The Thing an early homage in his gripping (or should that be "chilling"?) novel.

Ultimately, this thoroughly engrossing read even manages to be something of an Antarctic war story - the ultimate "cold war," as it were. Don't hesitate to snap it up. And don't forget your long-johns.

Not long after one of the scientists makes a significant, and possibly very profitable, discovery, members of the Amundsen-Scott Research Base begin to mysteriously disappear before being found dead. Is it an accident, suicide or something far more sinister? Unfortunately, for Jed Lewis, the new arrival on the base, all evidence seems to suggest that he's the murderer. In order to clear his name, he is compelled to find out just who is causing the mayhem.

This book had me wholly engrossed, both with the fascinating detail regarding survival in Antarctica and at the prospect of being cooped up for eight months with a killer. As more and more members of the tiny community are picked off, everyone's fears begin to get manipulated and rationality flies out the window. It's a chilling book in more ways than one.