See http://www.susanhatedliterature.net/2017/11/the-ice/ ( )

Wir gehen nicht gerade fürsorglich mit unserer Umwelt um und die Folgen sind überall spürbar. Dieses Buch befasst sich auch mit dem Thema und sollte uns eine Warnung sein, damit wir unser Verhalten ändern, denn es ist kurz vor zwölf.
Die Passagiere auf einem Kreuzfahrtschiff können beobachten, wie einer dieser Eisberge kalbt. Eine Leiche wird freigegeben und es stellt sich heraus, dass es sich um den Umweltaktivisten Thomas Harding handelt, der drei Jahre zuvor verschwand. Sein bester Freund und Geschäftspartner Sean Cawson war der letzte, der ihn lebend gesehen hat. Sie hatten große Pläne, denn sie wollte in der Gegend ein exklusives Lodge errichten, das auch dem Schutz der arktischen Meere dienen sollte. Bei den Ermittlungen kommt heraus, dass die Interessen der Freunde doch sehr auseinanderliefen, denn Cawson sah den Profit.
Die Geschichte berichtet in verschiedenen Zeitebenen. So erfahren wir mehr über die Vergangenheit und die Beziehung zwischen Thomas und Sean. Dazu wird der Fall in einer Gerichtsverhandlung aufgearbeitet, die die Umstände um den Tod von Thomas klären sollen. War der Tod von Thomas wirklich ein Unfall?
Der Schreibstil lässt sich gut lesen, allerdings gibt es auch ein paar Längen. Trotzdem hat mir die Geschichte sehr gut gefallen. Die Protagonisten sind gut herausgearbeitet, so dass ich mich in sie hineinversetzen konnte, was nicht heißt, dass ich das Verhalten unbedingt gutheißen konnte.
Besonders gefallen hat mir die Darstellung der Arktis. Ich hatte die beeindruckende Umgebung stets vor Augen. Es wurde auch sehr deutlich, was wir mit der Natur dort anstellen, welche Gefahren drohen und welche wirtschaftlichen Chancen dort liegen. Ein Konflikt zwischen Umweltschutz und Profitstreben, der kaum gelöst werden kann.
Ein spannendes Buch, das unterhält und zum Nachdenken anregt. ( )

Laline Paull is quite a writer. There are so many levels to The Ice and each works with pinpoint precision. As with her first (and Bailey's award nominated The Bees) there's an environmental theme at the heart of the story but this is no Day After Tomorrow overnight eco-catastrophe this is simply our current trend of climate change and (lack of action) transported a into the not-too-distant future. London is experiencing the effects of sandstorms in the Sahara, the UK is developing a monsoon season, it feels like summer in February. Elsewhere the consequences are more dramatic but still distant enough to sweep under the carpet, riding waters levels are devastating the Maldives and key to the story, the summer sea ice in the Arctic has vanished opening up new potential shipping routes and exploitation of natural resources.

At the opening of the book we meet Sean Cawson, he's a self-made man, rich, successful, on track for a knighthood and he has a passion for the Arctic but these three factors don't always compliment one another. Rather than the polar explorer of his boyhood dreams he has become the ambitious CEO of an exclusive Midgard retreat that caters to the wealthy and the influential and manages to maintain a privileged position in the thorny, acquisitive politics of the Arctic. But a more personal shadow has fallen over the Midgard Glacier. In a tragic accident several years before Sean's friend and colleague Tom Harding, a renowned environmental activist, was lost and presumed dead. His body has just been recovered. The threads of Paull's narrative are artfully woven as we follow the present events and the fraught inquest into Tom's death as well as several other points in the relationship of these two complex and intriguing characters, their meeting, their friendship, the germination of Sean's business interests in Svalbard and, of course, the circumstances of the accident that left one of them dead and the other increasingly prone to flashbacks and panic.

It's a fantastically gripping story, slow-burning and supported by complex characters, each a convincing puzzle with multiple, often conflicting, motivations. Sean is all to believable as a man whose genuine passion for the arctic has become tainted by his determination to shed his past and prove to the world that he is successful and important. Paull starkly beautiful descriptions of the arctic landscape contrast cleverly with the increasingly murky world of international politics and shady business interests. But the dark side of the far north's declining natural beauty is not new, or entirely man-made and the excerpts from the writing of polar adventurers adds fascinating depth to the history and culture of arctic exploration and exploitation.

While absolutely central to her story Paull's handling of climate change is also impressively subtle. The environmental changes, at least in richer nations, remain relatively minor, it's the same slow but inexorable development many can see now, which only makes it more frightening because it isn't really about change, it's about consistency, only the year has changed. A consistency of political and economic attitudes and a little time and Paull convincingly demonstrates how we will continue to sleepwalk into disaster. Her passion and knowledge are abundantly clear but The Ice never becomes a manifesto and her plot and characters have strength and depth that easily allows them to hold their own weight, ultimately it is a story and the unfurling of this central relationship becomes the crux of a riveting, character-driven story of ambition, idealism, compromise and friendship, but the fall-out is intense and the consequences potentially earth-shattering. Paull has achieved a rare feat in this story of a convincing, literary, character-driven thriller that cuts no corners and pulls no punches. ( )

This is a novel that defies ready categorisation, containing elements of dystopian science fiction, thriller, courtroom drama and eco-political tract, with significant elements of the history of polar exploration thrown in. A heady mix, perhaps, but it all works, effectively woven together by Laline Paull.

It is set in an unspecified, but presumably not too distant future (there are a few subtle pointers, such as the description of a couple of barristers as KCs, rather than QCs) in which the Arctic icecap has largely melted. As the novel opens, a luxury liner is crawing slowly along the shores of Svalbard, searching for polar bears to sate the appetites of demanding wealthy tourists. A bear is finally found, and the passengers are all merrily taking photographs of it when, without any warning, there is a sudden tremor, and the glacier oin which the bear starts crumbling into the sea. As huge boulders of ice collapse away from the glacier, a human body is revealed. Once stability returns, the body is retrieved.

It turns out that the corpse is Tom Harding, a renowned eco-protester and former leader of Greenpeace and other campaigning bodies. He was also a university friend of Sean Cawson, Chief Executive and senior shareholder in Midgard Lodge, a luxury hotel site in Svalbard that caters to exceptionally wealthy guests who are eager to enjoy highly exclusive retreats. Harding and Cawson had been exploring a network of ice caves near Midgard Lodge when a sudden shift in the ice (possibly caused by the impact of warming compromising the integrity of the glacial structures) had left them stranded under the ice. Cawson had been rescued while Harding had never been seen again until his body emerged from the glacier, three years later.

Cawson is a self-made man, though despite his immense commercial success, he is riven with self-doubt, and has found himself alienated from his wife and daughter. His business empire had been formed through hard work, fortuitous investments and the support of a mentor, Joe Kingsmith. Under Kingsmith's mantle, he had first learned his business craft, and then gradually started to establish himself in his own right. Recognising his debt to the older man, he had invited Kingsmith to invest in Midgard Lodge.

The discovery of Tom's body leads unavoidably to a formal inquest, which forms the central core of the novel, and offers a stage for the compelling scrutiny of the nature and extent of the business and political contacts that both Harding and Cawson has followed during their respective careers. This allows Laline Paull to explore the conflicting arguments supporting and opposing mineral exploitation of the Arctic Circle. She manages this deftly, using separate characters to put forward their respective ideas, all handled objectively through the filter of the inquest.

Interspersed with the story, in between each chapter, Laline Paull interpolates extracts from various classic accounts of Polar explorations, which offer intriguing contextual insights into different aspects of the emerging story. She controls the plot very effectively, gradually letting more information and new avenues of thought emerge and continuing to throw up new twists. All in all, a very effective and gripping novel, and I look forward to reading more by her. ( )

This is a story of friendship and betrayal, business, politics, and climate change. It's set in contemporary times but climate change has progressed slightly further and is affecting the UK (hot in October), and protecting the arctic is a hot topic. Two university friends obsessed withe the arctic and exploration have taken different paths in life, one an environmental campaigner, one a businessman, both high-profile in middle-age. They go into business together in the arctic but one has a secret and the other ends up dead. The inquest brings out all their secrets....

I loved Laline Paull's The bees, and this is very different but ticks the polar exploration box for me (I enjoy fiction and non-fiction about polar travel and exploration both modern and historical). It was a page-turner and really made me think about the effects of climate change. Sean Cawson's middle-aged fragile masculinity and vanity was well-expressed.

As a side-note I will always be grateful to Laline Paull for introducing me to Peter Freuchen (early 20th century Danish explorer), extracts of whose works are reproduced in The ice, each one more grim than the last. Ghastly sounding food, frostbitten self-amputated toes and the final tale of his beard being frozen to his sled and having to chop it off with his own frozen faeces.... It's almost unbelievable, I had to check that he really existed! Surely no-one could have the luck he had. ( )