Frozen Solid: A Novel (Hallie Leland)
Tabor’s debut novel, The Deep Zone (2012), offered an intense exploration of the alien world of deep caves. Now he ratchets the tension even higher with another thriller set in a forbidding environment, the frozen wastelands of the South Pole. Hallie Leland travels to the Antarctic at the request of a colleague, and, when she arrives, she finds nothing but chaos. Her friend is dead, the people stationed there seem crazy, and she watches as one of the scientists hemorrhages and dies. Hallie’s friend left her a diary that reveals a secret that others would kill to protect. And when she starts asking questions, others begin to die, and she realizes her time is short unless she solves the mystery of what has happened at the Amundsen-Scott Research Center. Tabor does a great job of evoking the paranoia-ripe landscape of utter isolation and killing temperatures of 100 degrees below zero. The book reads like The Andromeda Strain meets The Thing. Effectively blending horror with the science thriller, Tabor keeps readers on edge from beginning to end. --Jeff Ayers