Now, this was a ride! 🙂

From the start you can tell this will be a medically-oriented novel, even the metaphors are going in that directions. But what you don’t know is how fast-paced, intriguing and scary it will get. And when I say scary, I don’t mean horror but real-life possibility. Which I find to be even scarier.

“The South Pole’s Amundsen Scott Research Station is like an outpost on Mars. 
Winter temperatures average 100 degrees below zero; week-long hurricane-force
storms rage; for eight months at a time the station is shrouded in darkness.
Under the stress, bodies suffer and minds twist. Panic, paranoia, and hostility
prevail. 
When a South Pole scientist dies mysteriously, CDC
microbiologist Hallie Leland arrives to complete crucial research. Before she
can begin, three more women inexplicably die. As failing communications and
plunging temperatures cut the station off from the outside world, terror rises
and tensions soar. Amidst it all, Hallie must crack the mystery of her
predecessor’s death.
In Washington, D.C., government agency director Don
Barnard and enigmatic operative Wil Bowman detect troubling signs of shadowy
behavior at the South Pole and realize that Hallie is at the heart of it. Unless
Barnard and Bowman can track down the mastermind, a horrifying act of global
terror, launched from the station, will change the planet forever—and Hallie
herself will be the unwitting instrument of destruction.
As the Antarctic winter sweeps in, severing contact with the outside world, Hallie must
trust no one, fear everyone, and fight to keep the frigid prison from becoming
her frozen grave.”

At some point you realize there must be a previous book featuring Hallie and Wil Bowman meeting and having an adventure after which they become an item. That book is now on my TBR list (and it does exist). 🙂

But, you don’t actually have to read the first one in order to fully enjoy the second one. The only reason I felt bad for not reading it is because I believe it might be great and I missed it (but not for long).

Hallie is a wonderful character, a military brat grown into an intelligent, fit and extremely capable woman (that is what I read from the story). At some points, her adventures are more of the James Bond type but they are nevertheless great.

Basically, it’s a very good thriller, featuring more or less realistic characters (I believe there are many gifted people in the world but some seem to have been gifted by their writers rather well), nevertheless, it feels realistic and unfortunately believable.

I wonder if as I grow older I’ll start believing in conspiracy theories. If I keep reading things like this it’s quite possible…

The world population is a rather big issue and seeing morals and ethics being put aside for the greater goal makes me feel scared that it might easily happen.

My copy of the book came from NetGalley.

Tagged: Book review, Frozen Solid, James M. Tabor