Freezing Point by Karen Dionne, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Karen Dionne's debut thriller, Freezing Point, is a terrifying, yet mesmerizing, tale of good intentions gone terribly wrong when researchers try to tap the frozen Antarctic for pure, fresh water.

Water, the building block for all life on earth, is being wasted, or so it is believed by countless "Save the Earth" protesters. Derek MacCallister has a potential solution in a patent he has been granted providing for a method and apparatus for melting Antarctic icebergs into drinking water. Selling the process to Soldyne Company, he accepts $2 million in return. The process, however, requires a native, floating iceberg, not ice attached to the Antarctic continental shelf. Three years pass and the frozen giant has still not produced any fresh water leaving the corporate executives worried about a return on their investment. But it appears that global warming may produce just what is needed: a 1250-square-mile, 650-foot-high section of an Antarctica that may be calved as an iceberg. If it happened, it would unleash 700 billion gallons of pure fresh drinking water –- enough to fulfill the needs of 4.6 million families for a year. Cold winds and storms hamper the division of the ice cap. But not for long. Someone decides not to wait for the nature to take its course and blasts a crevice separating the huge iceberg. Some team members working on the mission are injured or killed. Horrendous nightmares are subsequently caused by the separation. How many of the team will get off the iceberg? And even if they do, how many will make it safely home?

Though clearly and firmly in the category of ecothriller with all that the label typically implies, the author actually presents a fairly balanced view of each side in Freezing Point. The characters could easily have been caricatures but are not, and are portrayed as sincerely believing that their approach is best. Solutions to the problem of fresh drinking water are not black and white, right or wrong, and extreme positions on either side are far from ideal. From a plot standpoint, the author probably takes it a step too far in relating the consequences of the iceberg cleavage, but that's part of what puts the thrill in thriller. In short, Freezing Point is a fast-paced novel with some thought-provoking themes.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Freezing Point.

Acknowledgment: Penguin Group provided a copy of Freezing Point for this review.

Boiling Point
Jove (Mass Market Paperback), December 2010
ISBN-13: 9780515148800; ISBN-10: 0515148806