Category: Fiction/Thriller – Paperback: 384 pages – Publisher: Little, Brown (Hachette) – Source: Bookcrossing
First Published: 2001

Synopsis: In 1997 a journal is found in an all weather shelter in Antarctica. Travelling back to England the finder reads an extraordinary story of depravation, war, survival and the thirst for revenge. It is the autobiography of Dirk, who as a child was an inmate of the Nazi concentration camps where he saw his mother horrifically abused, particularly by one man. Unlike his mother, he survives the camps and the death march to be brought up in Canada. There, as a young man forging a career in the environment movement, he comes across the same man. The meeting unblocks the suppressed memories of his childhood and Dirk savours the heady flavour of revenge. He is co-opted by ‘The Secret Hunters’ and with dogged patience they track their prey through a web of intermediaries, discovering that he and his cohorts believe they can re-establish the fascist state. On a secret mission to mine valuable minerals in the Antarctic Dirk confronts him. The result is deadly – but for which man?

I’m in the middle of a trough of despair, or rather a patch of reading books I am not enjoying. It amounts to the same thing, I think. In terms of this book, I love reading about the South Pole normally but despite the Antarctica setting for this novel and despite the intriguing possibility of Fiennes as an author… I couldn’t finish this book. Mostly it was because I felt I was being battered over the head with facts ON EVERY SINGLE PAGE and the links between facts seemed scanty at best. Urgh. I feel a little guilty for hanging on to it so long only to not finish it but I just couldn’t get any further with it. Sorry, Jeff, maybe my lack of experience with thrillers is holding me back from discovering the page-turner under the swatches of background info but I am 100 pages in and conceding defeat.

Rating: 0/10 (DNF) (My Book Review Scale)

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