Dark Winter Book Review

Dark Winter is a 2001 thriller written by William Dietrich(pictured below) who also penned The Rosetta Key and The Barbary Pirates.

The story is set in Antarctica, in the South Pole. It revolves around a group of researchers who are working in the U.S. research base called the Amundsen-Scott base(pictured below). The temperatures can drop to 110 degrees below zero. The workers have to put on layers of clothes just to go outside and the landscape is bleak and unforgiving.The winters are unbelievably harsh and the people there have to deal with depression, boredom and isolation. Jed Lewis is a newbie. He has come to the base to work on research with the others. He is the last person to join the team and he has a hard time getting used to it. He has to learn all about keeping warm and being careful if he goes outside. He meets the crew and there are many different personalities.

There is Tyson, the mechanic, who is loathed by most of the crew because he does whatever he wants and flaunts all of the rules. There is water rationing at the base and he takes longer showers than everyone else which pisses them off. There is Abby, the girl who Lewis likes and who seems to like him. Then there is the psychologist, Robert Norse who is there to make sure that everyone stays in good mental health. The station manager is Rod Cameron and he has the daunting task of making sure that everything runs well. Jed meets the eccentric astrophysicist Mickey Moss and they talk. It turns out that Mickey found a meteorite which is worth a lot of money and he has it hidden in his office. When he turns up dead, people wonder who did it but they know why. The meteorite is missing too.

Fingers begin to point at the newbie, Jed because he was the last one to arrive there. All the evidence points to him and people begin to treat him like an outcast. He tries to prove his innocence, but the deaths keep mounting and he is in a worse and worse position. Did he do it or is someone trying to set him up? This book is a great action thriller and there are some great twists and turns in it which keep you reading on. It is well worth a read because it is fun to try and figure out who the killer is and when you find out, it is a satisfactory result. I like the whodunit genre and this fits into it nicely. It starts slowly but as you get into it,it gets better and better and the climax is very entertaining. I recommend this and I guarantee that by the end, you won't be able to put it down!