Whiteout - Duncan Kyle **** (Also released under the heading In Deep)

One day (if not already) there will be a list drawn of all the world’s greatest action/adventure authors. There will be the likely candidates of MacLean/Fleming/Higgins etc, and I just hope that the compiler remembers to add Duncan Kyle into that list, and hopefully he will be somewhere near the top.

Whiteout follows the adventures of Harry Bowes, a salesman from a company that makes all terrain snow vehicles, a sort of hovercraft. In order to try and secure a deal with the army he is offered a chance to demonstrate the machines capabilities at Camp 100, cut off and situated high above the Arctic Circle. However things don’t go entirely to plan and bodies start appearing all around him, being a naturally inquisitive man he decides to do a little investigating and ultimately endangers his own life in the process.

I loved the way Kyle describes the barren environment and the harshness of the men’s situation that you get the feeling he must have experienced these conditions himself. He manages to pack so much into the books 224 pages that any fan of the genre will find something to satisfy them. In some ways I felt the book deserved 5 stars but on occasion I found the way in which Harry was received by the military was a little unrealistic. Here is a man with no major connection to the station, which at times is allowed to wander around unguarded or unseen, even though there is obviously a murderer /sabotager at work. It needed a bit more substance in the plot to really allow the reader to believe this could happen. Having said that, I really enjoyed the book and finished it with a sense of satisfaction that very few authors provide. ( )