Dark Winter

by William Dietrich

Book Overview

At America's base at the South Pole, 26 people wave goodbye to the last plane out before winter. In the succeeding days and weeks they'll be tested not just by unimaginable weather extremes, but by a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446611972
• ISBN13: 9780446611978
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Gripping page-turner!

This highly entertaining mystery novel is set at Admunson-Scott research base at the South Pole. A team of researchers and support crew are preparing to spend the next eight months "wintering over" at the base, where they'll be completely cut off from the outside world (except for email), and completely on their own. The temperature can get down to minus 110 degrees, which means no planes can fly in, and nobody can be outside for more than a few minutes without risking life or limb. Once you're in the station and the last plane has left, you're stuck there with no options for escape for eight frozen-solid months. Most of the station's winter staff have been there before and know each other well. But there are two newcomers this year as well: Jed Lewis, a geologist who has been hired to study the weather, and Bob Norse, a psychologist there to monitor the emotions of the others, as part of a space-related study to see how people cope when they are thrust into a stressful, isolated, and small environment. At first, everything is pretty exciting for Jed, until he finds out he's been hired for an ulterior reason -- the main scientist on the base, an old-timer named Mickey Moss, didn't actually bring a geologist out to study the weather after all. Go figure. Nope, instead, he brought Jed to the South Pole to analyze a rock he's found -- a rock he thinks is from Mars, something that would make it worth over five million dollars. But before Jed even has a chance to really examine it, the rock goes missing. And then Moss is found murdered. Pretty soon, the researchers and staff find themselves being picked off one by one, with one body found with an anonymous note implying that the killer is after the missing rock, and will keep killing until whoever stole it hands it over. Everybody suspects Jed -- after all, he's the newbie and he was the only one who really knew how valuable the rock would be. Then again, there's also the mechanic with an extremely large, and violent, chip on his shoulder. And, frankly, I'm finding that psychologist guy a little bit shady, as well, though I can't really put my finger on just why. Who is killing off the staff at Admundson-Scott? And how can the others stop the murderer when they have no weapons, no crime-fighting skills, no contact with the outside world, no means of escape, and no locks on any of their doors? Man, this was just a really exciting and thoroughly entertaining novel. I can't remember the last time I found a book so gripping it kept me awake for hours and hours past my bedtime -- but that's exactly what this book did. When I got to the last third, I couldn't go to bed until I was done. I love it when that happens (that is, until the next morning, when I'm utterly exhausted!). Highly, highly recommended, and I can't wait to read more by this author soon!

The Ultimate Cold War

Geologist Jed Lewis took a last-minute detour to Antarctica, as a favor to a friend. Seems Amundsen-Scott base's grand old man, astrophysicist Mickey Moss, may have found a Martian meteorite - and if he has, it could well be worth up to five million dollars. With that kind of money at stake, and a secret that can't last five minutes among twenty-six so close-knit administrators and scientists, it isn't long before the rock disappears...and, one by one, so do the crew of Amundsen-Scott. As if the cash incentive of the possible meteorite isn't enough, one of this year's base members is actually an exceptionally dangerous psychopath - who already has more than one murder to his credit.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.

Chilling

For the 26 men and women who are wintering at the South Pole, they have to survive in possibly the most isolated place on the planet. During winter, the sun won't come up for eight months; they are completely alone to carry on their research. Many of them have done it before, so are not too disturbed at the prospect of being cut-off from the rest of the world, enduring the eight-month night. Until the killings start.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.

Curious mixture

A well-written and well-thought out narrative of the physical,emotional and scientific challenges of wintering-over in the Antartic. I normally prefer mysteries and this novel certainly fulfilled that requirement as members of the scientific community disappeared or made ghastly (dead) appearances. In the wake of September 11, the author raises some issues about survival and what is important to the human species. The science presented was believable, understandable and fascinating! I will miss these characters...

26 Little Penguins

Agatha Christie took ten people off to a remote location for a weekend, and they started to die, one by one. William Dietrich isolates twenty-six people at the South Pole for several months, and guess what? "Ten Little Indians" happens to twenty-six ice- and dark-bound South Pole residents. (There are no penguins at the Pole; they are at the ocean hundreds of miles away.) Jed Lewis is a geologist turned meteorologist assigned as a last minute replacement to the team that will "winter-over" at the Amundsen-Scott Base at the South Pole. When the plane that bought Jed leaves, along with the last of the "summer people", the twenty-six remaining scientists and support staff are stranded-there will be no way in or out over the long, perpetually dark winter. (The very real April, 2001 evacuation of a critically ill doctor from Amundsen-Scott by a heroic small plane flight from McMurdo base emphasizes he isolation of the characters in the book.) Jed is actually a sort of secret agent. After becoming disenchanted with his work with "big oil" in secretly surveying the Alaskan nature reserves for oil deposits, he is looking for a new job. He meets a scientist who is working on global warming and needs data from the South Pole winter; but the technician who was going to winter over and collect data for him has canceled. It also seems that the top scientist at the Pole has found a rock buried deep in the ice. Since there are no rocks at the Pole, this must be a meteorite, but it is not the typical metallic rock. The find must be kept secret, because it could be very valuable-scientifically and commercially. Since Jed is a geologist, he can do the preliminary evaluation over the winter while collecting climate data. Meanwhile, he will have several months to consider his life and his options. In an almost foreseeable fashion, the plot begins to twist and turn when the rock disappears and then its finder is found dead. Clue after clue points toward Jed, who is the new guy and suspicious anyway-why was a geologist sent down to do climate research? There is romance, and there is skulduggery. The story is told well and the reader feels the isolation and fear as everyone seeks to find an easy answer to calm their terrors. Even if many parts of the plot are anticipated, the story is interesting-after all, Agatha Christie was not all that original in her stories, and they are still classics.