Description:
William Dietrich, a science and environment journalist who's used his Antarctic experience in previously published fiction (Ice Reich) as well as features for the Seattle Times, heads south again in this thriller whose beautifully limned landscapes and detailed description of "wintering over" at the South Pole are almost too good for such pedestrian plotting. Geologist Jed Lewis joins the Antarctic Support Team at the last minute, and his position as an outsider in a group of 26 "beakers" (scientists) and support personnel is clear even before the first in a series of mysterious and macabre deaths occurs. The senior beaker, a famed astrophysicist named Mickey Moss, has discovered a meteorite that may be worth millions, and when his body is discovered and the meteorite goes missing, suspicion falls on Jed, for no good reason other than his late arrival at the base. Jed becomes the scapegoat for everyone's suspicions, fears, and paranoia, and the pot is stirred by the team psychologist, ostensibly sent to the pole to learn how people behave (or don't) in the isolated, dangerous environment, as close a simulacrum of the conditions humans will face in outer space as science can devise. Unfortunately, Dietrich's series of asides to the reader give the rest of the story away, leaving his beautiful descriptions of the polar dark and nuts-and-bolts explanations of living and working in the world's most rigorous climate the only reasons to finish this ultimately unsatisfying novel. --Jane Adams
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