The Dark by Emma Haughton
This well-praised, recent thriller is in the vein of a classic country house mystery. In this case, though, the country house is the UN research centre in Antartica. As the long, arctic winter begins, the scientists and technicians at the base know that there will be no sunshine and no contact with other humans, apart from over the satellite phone, for the next eight months.
Kate North arrives just before the annual lockdown as an emergency relief doctor for the recently deceased Jean-Luc who had died in a tragic accident that few of his colleagues are willing to talk about with her. As you can see, everything is in place: a hostile and forbidding setting that is cut off from the outside world; a limited range of characters with secrets; and, in Kate, a protagonist who is escaping a personal tragedy but is ill-prepared for the rigours and tensions of her new workplace.
In the first half of this book, the details of living in Antartica and the dynamics of the base’s residents are filled out in a skilful manner by Haughton. We explore these through Kate’s outsider eyes. She is intelligent and compassionate but fragile, struggling to adapt to this strange, testing environment as well as a shattered personal life. The problem is that her self-medicating dulls her capacity to cope with the tensions caused by Jean Luc’s death and there is the psychological strain that is a consequence of being cooped up with a group of colleagues whom she begins to realise are dysfunctional. Any significant time outside of the base is potentially fatal due to the harsh conditions and each person’s safety depends on the staff performing as a cohesive team.
In the second half of the story, the action accelerates after Haughton’s careful development of setting and character. Here the environment becomes as much of a threat as Kate’s growing belief that one of her colleagues is a murderer. This section is exciting with one or two high octane set pieces. It was, however, a little more conventional than the first section and, after a period when all the base’s staff seemed to be dubious, I did not find it hard to anticipate the final revelation.
I’m being churlish, though, because this is a well-constructed thriller that makes good use of its unusual setting and gives us a flawed central character who has to struggle to keep everyone safe whilst dealing with a prescription drug addiction and a shattered sense of self. This is an ideal page turner to read in a cosy, warm room as the winter approaches because you can comfort yourself by thinking that at least you’re not in Antartica.