Book Review: ‘The Dark’ by Emma Haughton

As I’m much too ginger to really enjoy the sun, I’ve developed a bit of a fascination with cold places. Holidays in Alaska, Russia or Norway – count me in! With that in mind, it was the setting of Antarctica that brought me to this book – and I am so glad it did.

Thanks to NetGalley for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The story opens with Kate, our main character and a medical doctor, arriving at a research station in the Antarctic. She has her own reasons for taking the remote job and steps at short notice into a role recently held by a doctor who died in an accident on the ice. As the team shrinks down to core staff for the winter, only 13 people remain at the facility, When that number becomes 12, Kate begins to question whether the death is part of a bigger picture. Not knowing who she can trust, she begins a dangerous investigation…

This is a genuinely tense and exciting thriller – I couldn’t put it down as I watched Kate navigate her way through some excruciatingly tense events and situations. Given the fact that Kate is herself an unreliable narrator (not a spoiler), I was drawn into guessing and second-guessing all the time. I didn’t manage to get anywhere near the solution but I had a lot of fun trying.

The setting is the real strength of this novel. The dangerous and inhospitable Antarctic surroundings really add to the tension, especially when the research facility closes down to core staff only for the 24 hours a day darkness that the winter season brings. Haughton perfectly captures the peril inherent in living in such extreme conditions – the disorientating and unnavigable whiteness, the reliance on generators and supplies, the lack of contact with the outside world. There is a real sense of claustrophobia that will probably be a whole lot more understandable to readers now after the various Covid lockdowns!

The day to day realities of living in these remote conditions make up a lot of the novel and Haughton seems to have done some seriously extensive research into this. Between all the heart-in-mouth moments, I found it fascinating to see how people cope with living in these circumstances. Details about clothes, weather, food supplies, communications, the base’s layout and the science experiments are woven into the fabric of the novel seamlessly. So interesting, but so extreme!

I loved the fact that this is essentially a mystery with a closed circle of suspects. There is no way anyone can come from outside, so the reader is left to guess which of the research station’s ‘inmates’ is dodgy – and there is an international and diverse cast to choose from. I did find it a bit tricky to remember who was who at the beginning – a reference list would have been handy. I found myself really liking some characters before (like Kate) remembering that they could easily be a criminal!

I’d recommend this to anyone who loves truly tense thrillers – the monotony of daily life at the research centre (although I found this bit really intereresting!) is perfectly offset with the paranoia that everyone could be an enemy. If you like psychological mysteries with a finite number of possible suspects (think along the lines of Ruth Ware and Catherine Cooper books) then this is for you.

As for me, as much as I love cold places, I will give Antarctica a miss!

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Header photo by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash