Book Review | Zodiac Station by Tom Harper

In the Arctic Ocean, the US Coast Guard icebreaker Terra Nova batters its way through the pack ice. There shouldn't be anyone near them for hundreds of miles. But then a lone skier, half-dead with cold, emerges out of the snow.

His name is Tom Anderson, and he is the only survivor of a disaster at Zodiac Station, a scientific research base deep in the Arctic Circle. He tells an incredible story of scientists and spies, of lust and greed, of jealousy, mayhem and murder. But his tale simply doesn't add up. Whose blood is smeared across his clothes? Why is there a bullet hole through the jacket he's wearing, and why is that jacket labelled with someone else's name?

It's clear that more was going on at Zodiac Station than Anderson is telling. And someone else may have survived the disaster, as well... someone who has killed before, and who is willing to kill again.

***

An uncanny account of the circumstances surrounding the murder of the members of a remote outpost near the North Pole, Tom Harper's taut new novel—a conspiracy-ridden riff on The Thing—is thrilling and quite literally chilling.

I suppose you know about Utgard. It's the last place in the world, the most northerly scrap of land on the planet. Easy to miss—so easy, in fact, that no one realised it was there until the twentieth century. Most of it's covered in ice, so much that the weight has actually pushed the land below sea level. Not that there's much sea, either: for ten months of the year it's frozen solid. The only notable population is polar bears, and a couple of dozen scientists at Zodiac Station. I wouldn't like to say who's hairier. (p.16)

Zodiac Station's story unfolds in several stages. In the framing tale we have Carl Franklin, Captain of the US Coast Guard cutter Terra Nova: "an ice-reinforced vessel capable of making a steady three knots through four-foot ice, of smashing her way to the North Pole if need be. She'd already been there twice in her short working life." (p.1) For now, the ship simply sits, as the cutter's complement of clever-clogs set about sciencing the pristine scenery.

Lucky for the geeks that they're guarded by men with weapons, as they aren't as alone as they think.