Look Out for These – Techno Trio: #1 - Zodiac Station by Tom Harper – murder, science and suspicion in the cold of the Arctic

This month’s highlights have a common theme – they’re all “Techno Thrillers” and for a change I’m going to write slightly longer reviews of the three books I think are worth looking out for and post them separately.  The first is Tom Harper’s latest novel – Zodiac Station.

As the US ice breaker Terra Nova battles its way through the frozen Arctic, they come across a man staggering through the storm suffering from exposure, malnutrition and a gunshot wound.  The man tells the crew the story of is escape from an explosion at Zodiac Station – a catastrophe preceded by the murder of one of the station’s scientists.  The man’s story doesn’t add up and as other survivors appear leaving the crew to work out which of them is telling the truth, who is lying and whether danger has followed them to the Terra Nova.

The story is told from a number of different points of view which gives the reader plenty of scope to try and unravel the mystery, searching for those clues and inconsistencies at the same time as the Terra Nova’s crew.  It’s almost like a literary game of Cluedo.  What’s also interesting is the well researched science in the novel which includes glaciology, medicine and genetics.  If that’s not enough, we also get to see those pesky Russians trying to muscle in on the Arctic.  Villains aplenty in this tale.

All in all, it’s a good mix of mystery, thriller and science, which is why Barry Forshaw deservedly describes Tom Harper as “the thinking man’s Dan Brown”.

Romancrimeblogger