The landscape of James M. Tabor's Frozen Solid is as much a character as Dr. Hallie Leland, the microbiologist who flies to the South Pole to finish the research started by a former colleague who died under mysterious circumstances. Minutes after Hallie arrives, another woman suddenly bleeds out right in front of her, and the deaths don't stop there. As if the the deaths and harsh climate aren't enough, Hallie's life is endangered when she stumbles upon a secret video and a conspiracy with chilling ramifications for the human race. Cut off from the rest of the world, with a killer in the vicinity and no one to trust, she can rely on only herself to get out alive.
Hallie is not just brilliant but attractive; she's equally skilled at diving into supercaves in Mexico (as she does in Tabor's previous book, The Deep Zone) as she is under Antarctic ice. As a protagonist, she could easily be unbelievable if she weren't so grounded and likable. Tabor's ice-diving scenes are both eerie and awe-inspiring, with an undercurrent of menace that threatens to engulf Hallie in unending cold and darkness.
A thriller, this novel is also educational, scattering terms like "dehiscence" and "extremophile" throughout. One could feel smarter after reading it. The ending, with its references to tornadoes and Dorothy, is a bit odd--but perhaps it's a clue about Hallie's next extreme adventure. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, writer/editor blogging at Pop Culture Nerd