Customer Reviews

In Cold Pursuit

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Andrews shares lots of interesting scientific information about the Antarctic and about the studies being done there. The setting and the science were beautifly described and very informative. Unfortunately, I found the story itself to be rambling and confusing, with many characters introduced but none fleshed out. I got a pretty good feel for the protagonist, but most of the others were hard to tell apart. I had to read it in short segments and found it impossible to remember who was who, as there was not enough characterization to make them memorable. I plowed on to the end, but it was an unsatisfactory read.

I've been to Antarctica, and so enjoyed reading this description of a mystery set at McMurdo Sound with pleasure. It's a good concept, with a grad student trying to track down the reason for the disappearance of her thesis advisor. He had been arrested for the murder of a reporter who wrote negative stories on his research on global warning, and it's up to her to clear his name. She puts together the facts of what actually happened at high altitude on the Ice, and narrows it down to the final possible suspect, but not before another death on the Ice takes place and she herself is put at risk.

On the plus side, the description of Mac Town and the surrounding landscape are a nice introduction to life in Antarctica; the description of Survival camp in a white-out storm is great. On the other hand, as a mystery, there are 9 suspects and so many characters, Polar support groups and scientists in research projects that I had to write a list to try to keep track of all the names. And the final result was not something that I could have been deduced solely by paying careful attention to the facts as they had been presented.

This is the first book by this author I have read, so I'm not sure if the proliferation of characters is unique to this book, but I'll be finding out by checking out the others she has written. It's a minor problem compared to all the good things i discovered here.

I found the Em Hansen series fairly compelling, with characters I cared about. But this was one of those books I kept putting down out of sheer boredom, and then had to re-read sections every time I picked it up because I couldn't remember what the heck was going on - not out of incipient amnesia but because I hadn't been interested enough to retain everything. I finally gave up and took it back to the library. Hopefully Ms. Hansen will make a reappearance in the next book.

I hadn't read anything by Sarah Andrews before, and was impressed by her passion for making science accessible to a broad readership through fiction (similar to the role of Michael Crichton, though his works were largely science fiction, not fiction set in scientific environments.) The novel does a marvelous job of showing us the grandeur of Antarctica while also painting an extraordinary picture of life for scientists and workers at the McMurdo scientific research station. I also learned a bit about the climate change studies being done in Antarctica.

The story is told through the eyes of grad student Valena Walker, who has just arrived in Antarctica. The time lapse in which the novel is set is quite short, which is related to the issue of character development. Some reviewers have complained about the lack of character development and the wide range of characters introduced. Rather than being annoyed by this, I thought it contributed to my ability to see life through the eyes of someone who has just landed at McMurdo-- dozens of new people encountered all at once in an intense atmosphere, huge problems to solve and no one you know well or, given the circumstances, can know well. The reader struggles right along with the protagonist to make sense of the many new people she's meeting.

My major complaint with the book is that the editing was just horrible, the worst I have ever seen in a commercially published work. Quotation marks were frequently inserted, omitted or misplaced, leaving the reader to sort out what was dialog and what was not. One star for the publisher, but four or five stars for the author. I'd heartily recommend this book to lovers of mysteries and/or science.

I was on the Ice when Sarah was researching the book and it was fun to read about the old hell hole.

Her recreation of MacTown is fairly accurate though hardly captures the feel of the place, the story moves along decently though seems to be looking for its own footing as it slips and slides around the town and surrounding areas. Knowing the layout of the town and most of the people her characters were based on makes it hard for me to be balanced because I kept recalling too much but if you are a fan of Em Hansen this is not the best novel but if you dream of Antarctica and the fools who venture so far away then this is a rather honest vision of the closeness and distance that some people find there and an accurate depiction of some of those who could never be called normal anywhere else.

A previous reviewer noted that this book was not well edited in terms of punctuation. I would add that it was not well edited in terms of content either. There were long, incredibly prosaic passages that should have been excised in the interests of pace and plot. A lot of the writing was flat and read like a student journal. A hundred pages less would have been more.

This is a complicated, relatively long mystery, which is also full of technical info on what it's like at McMurdo Station and Antarctica in general. I got enthused enough to look up stuff about McMurdo on the Web. But the mystery and the heroine would have kept me happy even without the exotic setting.

Great book on ice habitation and frigid temperatures with lots of mystery. Kept me reading and can't wait for more. Would like to see this main character develop more humanity.

This book has it all - an intrepid heroin, an adventure through a new and dangerous world, a history lesson on Antarctica, and a thorough understanding of what it takes for daily survival in an unyielding, thrilling, and very dangerous environment. As the heroin, a master's student in glaciology, seeks to find out what happened to cause her mentor to be arrested for murder, her search puts her in the sights of the real killer who has his own agenda.

The research and Antartic information is wonderful. And the preachiness (global warming being the theme here) not too bad, quite bearable. But do we really need a new heroine who is intelligent, beautiful, resourceful, and has all kinds of unusual knowledge of unusual subjects, like driving heavy equipment amd lots else?? Give me Em Hansen back (PLEASE!!!), who has only OK looks, is very intelligent, and specializes in various and interesting geological fields, like oil exploration and forensic geology. People don't seem to fall all over themselves to help her. She's quite extraordinary enough, but not nearly so enviably so as this heroine, whose name is escaping me right now. Nevertheless, the book was good enough reading,lots of good info re ice and the like, I'll buy the next one no matter what, but really hope it's an Em Hansen.