| Publisher | Hodder Paperbacks |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 14 April 2022 |
| ISBN-10 | 1529356644 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1529356649 |
| Format | paperback |
| Pages | 384 |
| Price | £ 8.99 |
The Dark
by
Kate North takes a job as resident doctor during the winter at a UN research station in the Antarctic. As the darkness closes in, she realises that the death of her predecessor may not have been an accident.
Review
Bristol A&E doctor Kate North is traumatised by a bad car accident and seeks a change of scene by taking a job at short notice at an Antarctic research station. Summer visitors depart and the station is reduced to a staff of 13 who will over-winter there, in complete darkness.
Kate manages to look beyond her own personal drama long enough to realise that the atmosphere amongst the staff is uneasy. Nobody is keen to talk but it gradually emerges that some believe the death of the previous doctor was not an accident. When Kate makes modest enquiries, files are taken from her room. With another death, it becomes clear that there is a murderer in their midst.
Distrust is pretty well universal, and Kate transfers her suspicions several times before the culprit is identified. By then, however, the station has been sabotaged and several people need medical attention. With the station far from help and temperatures outside so low that survival is limited to a period of minutes, Kate needs to get her act together.
A tale of this sort always seems to tempt authors to pile on the angst, and here no opportunity is missed. The precise nature of the event that precipitated Kate’s relocation is concealed until the end, but is referred to every few pages, together with her resultant lack of confidence about every decision. Kate is frightened of just about everything, including the dark, so her decision to spend time in a place where the sun disappears for four months really doesn’t make a lot of sense. To make things worse, she pops opiates and Valium like Smarties.
Similarly, the friction in the station is ramped up so that there are plenty of arguments, sufficient to make everyone a plausible psychopath. The pressure in such circumstances is understandably high. But whether a small group of highly educated professionals would be reduced to acting like a bunch of eight-year-olds is something that is difficult to credit.
My patience was finally exhausted when I reached the short episode set in Bristol, which included a reference to directions that made no sense to me as a resident of the city. I sometimes wonder why this sort of easily correctable error is made, when there are likely to be plenty of readers who will spot the problem.
Kate manages to look beyond her own personal drama long enough to realise that the atmosphere amongst the staff is uneasy. Nobody is keen to talk but it gradually emerges that some believe the death of the previous doctor was not an accident. When Kate makes modest enquiries, files are taken from her room. With another death, it becomes clear that there is a murderer in their midst.
Distrust is pretty well universal, and Kate transfers her suspicions several times before the culprit is identified. By then, however, the station has been sabotaged and several people need medical attention. With the station far from help and temperatures outside so low that survival is limited to a period of minutes, Kate needs to get her act together.
A tale of this sort always seems to tempt authors to pile on the angst, and here no opportunity is missed. The precise nature of the event that precipitated Kate’s relocation is concealed until the end, but is referred to every few pages, together with her resultant lack of confidence about every decision. Kate is frightened of just about everything, including the dark, so her decision to spend time in a place where the sun disappears for four months really doesn’t make a lot of sense. To make things worse, she pops opiates and Valium like Smarties.
Similarly, the friction in the station is ramped up so that there are plenty of arguments, sufficient to make everyone a plausible psychopath. The pressure in such circumstances is understandably high. But whether a small group of highly educated professionals would be reduced to acting like a bunch of eight-year-olds is something that is difficult to credit.
My patience was finally exhausted when I reached the short episode set in Bristol, which included a reference to directions that made no sense to me as a resident of the city. I sometimes wonder why this sort of easily correctable error is made, when there are likely to be plenty of readers who will spot the problem.
Reviewed 17 December 2022 by Chris Roberts
