THROWBACK THURSDAY: THE ICE by JOHN KÅRE RAAKE
Night Without End was one of my favourite Alistair MacLean novels, and it instilled in me at a young age a liking for Arctic thrillers. In the early days authors like Desmond Bagley, Hammond Innes and even Gavin Lyall (The Most Dangerous Game) ventured into icy locales with good effect, but in more recent times good thrillers set near the North Pole seemed, unfortunately, to have become fewer.
I have particularly always enjoyed claustrophobic ice-bound thrillers with a killer or two on the loose, which is why I was keen to read John Kåre Raake’s The Ice, (Pushkin Vertigo). Originally published in Norwegian in 2019, The Ice was translated into English by the talented Adam King in 2021. It has taken me some time to get to it, but I am very glad that I did.
Former special forces Norwegian soldier Anna Aune is convinced by her father to accompany an old friend, Professor Daniel Zakariassen, on a scientific expedition to the North Pole. Anna, who is suffering from PSTD from events in the Middle East, is there to help and watch over the old man while he conducts his observations. It is all going okay, until the pitch black of the polar night is lit up by a distress flare. When Anna and Zakariassen arrive at a nearby Chinese research station they discover the aftermath of a massacre with mutilated bodies strewn about. They signal for help, but are stranded there by a fierce Arctic storm which cuts off any possibility of escape. As Anna tries to work out what happened, it becomes clear that there is at least one killer hiding on the base, and possibly among the survivors, and that the work being conducted at the Chinese base is far from innocent.
The Ice really grips from the opening pages. The race to the Chinese base is well described and exciting, and the discoveries there are gruesomely gripping. Raake constantly keeps the reader on edge with each new revelation. and the plot veers off in some unexpected directions. The final explanation of what is going on is clever and surprising, and the final pages are very tense.
The action scenes are violent and exciting, and Raake keeps the book moving along at a brisk pace. The characters are few, but Anna is a great central protagonist. She is convincingly described, and has a good mix of grit and bravery alongside an ever present instability brought about by her secret military service.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Ice. Initially I was a little nonplussed about the flashbacks to Anna’s time in the Middle East, but as the book progressed they became more compelling, and nicely tie into the conclusion in unexpected ways.
In all, The Ice is a very enjoyable thriller and has some of the best Arctic descriptions I have read since the early Alistair MacLeans. It is also well translated by Adam King and flows very well without any clunkiness. Hunt it down!