Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
I kindly received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Trigger warnings for substance abuse.
I enjoyed 'The Dark' and managed to read it in a day. The idea of a murderer on an Antarctic base is quite a terrifying thought. The author manages to capture the terror of the emptiness, the dark and the sense of hopelessness the characters would feel.
I felt the main character at points was annoying. I did find myself rolling my eyes at her decisions/detective skills. I think if maybe she had some sort of experience working in a post-mortem setting it would have enriched her character as a 'detective' or having the need to solve the mystery. At the end it was obvious who the culprit was but she was completely oblivious for quite some time.
However, I did find this book captivating enough that I couldn't put it down.
3.5 *
Trigger warnings for substance abuse.
I enjoyed 'The Dark' and managed to read it in a day. The idea of a murderer on an Antarctic base is quite a terrifying thought. The author manages to capture the terror of the emptiness, the dark and the sense of hopelessness the characters would feel.
I felt the main character at points was annoying. I did find myself rolling my eyes at her decisions/detective skills. I think if maybe she had some sort of experience working in a post-mortem setting it would have enriched her character as a 'detective' or having the need to solve the mystery. At the end it was obvious who the culprit was but she was completely oblivious for quite some time.
However, I did find this book captivating enough that I couldn't put it down.
3.5 *
This was one he!! of a roller-coaster ride! Super fast-paced and with a sense of foreboding throughout. I mean how can a story be set in Antarctic dark winters and not call out to you?! I loved it. It was literally unputdownable for me and I finished it in 2 days. It's just a tiny bit where you want to scream your head off at the MC, but you can also tell that they'll be the one to save the day. It's also a tad bit predictable, but I think this might just be me because I consume thrillers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner lol. But seriously though, if you are looking for something enjoyable and super fast-paced this is not to be missed!
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is a truly thrilling read set in the hostile environs of Antartica and had me gripped from start to finish.
Whilst some suspending of belief, particularly towards the heroic end, is needed to compensate for the artistic licence used, it is a genuine who-dunnit page turner guaranteed to set your heart racing if only because the crew of 13 live and work in such extreme isolation, relying on each other and a wealth of infrastructure to keep them as safe from the elements as possible.
The winter months are long and gruelling and spent in complete darkness, so it takes an inordinate amount of personal resilience to survive the conditions with your sanity in tact. That is enough to create a pervading sense of claustrophobia and when we discover just how psychologically damaged the base's new doctor, Kate is, tensions rocket sky high.
Every one of the crew appears to have secrets with some more friendly than others. But when Kate's curiosity is aroused by accounts of the previous doctor's horrific demise, a chain of events is sparked which leaves a trail of growing suspicion and more deaths in its wake.
Atmospheric, Christie-esque and compelling at every turn of the page, journey to the vast icy plains with Kate and the scientists, engineers and meteorologists to discover if anyone will leave alive.
Highly recommended read and what a marvellous debut for Ms Haughton!
Whilst some suspending of belief, particularly towards the heroic end, is needed to compensate for the artistic licence used, it is a genuine who-dunnit page turner guaranteed to set your heart racing if only because the crew of 13 live and work in such extreme isolation, relying on each other and a wealth of infrastructure to keep them as safe from the elements as possible.
The winter months are long and gruelling and spent in complete darkness, so it takes an inordinate amount of personal resilience to survive the conditions with your sanity in tact. That is enough to create a pervading sense of claustrophobia and when we discover just how psychologically damaged the base's new doctor, Kate is, tensions rocket sky high.
Every one of the crew appears to have secrets with some more friendly than others. But when Kate's curiosity is aroused by accounts of the previous doctor's horrific demise, a chain of events is sparked which leaves a trail of growing suspicion and more deaths in its wake.
Atmospheric, Christie-esque and compelling at every turn of the page, journey to the vast icy plains with Kate and the scientists, engineers and meteorologists to discover if anyone will leave alive.
Highly recommended read and what a marvellous debut for Ms Haughton!
The Dark could be summed up quite quickly as an Agatha Christie style mystery thriller set in the Antarctic. When it's dark 24/7 and the lights go out, how do you figure out whodunnit?
Our main character, Dr Kate North has managed to bag herself a place on a UNA (United Nations Antarctic Ice Station) research program of some sort – I never quite understood what the point of the program actually was, but it's clear that the ice station is a harsh, unfriendly place to be, and with the winter coming, it's also completely unreachable from the outside for at least six months. In terms of your survival, you might as well be in Space – you can't even breathe outside for more than a few seconds without your lungs beginning to fail due to the extreme cold. Your phone will freeze over if you take it outside. Add to that it's dark 24/7, it's claustrophobic and really not the place for a prescription-drug addicted Doctor with unresolved PTSD leading to mental health issues - (who on earth was running their screening program?).
From the moment we are introduced to her, Kate's behaviour is erratic at best and she necks that many illicit drugs from her medicine cabinet I'm surprised the book wasn't just a series of blank pages as she completely failed to function as a human. However she somehow powers through and starts to poke her nose into the past events on the station that led to her appointment, and her predecessor Jean-Luc dead down an icy ravine. Once she starts to question just what happened, bad things start to happen to her colleagues; nasty "accidents" start to happen and it soon becomes clear that there's a fox in the coop who doesn't want her finding out any more - but who is it and will she live to expose them?
The station crew is 12 strong and there are others outside of that, so there are lots of characters to keep track of - I ended up taking a screenshot on my tablet of the page where they all introduced themselves. Suspicion flits from one to the other, up and down the chain of command and we're never quite sure if Kate is a reliable narrator or if the copious amount of self-medicating that she's doing is actually making her completely addled and we're seeing events solely through her eyes. Towards the end of the book, Kate is forced into a situation where she has to stop taking the drugs completely and rather than this having a negative effect on her, she implausibly seems to turn into some kind of superhero; so much more capable and cognitively 'with it' than she has been at any point before which left me a tad confused - sobering up does not happen that fast, especially to someone who is abusing meds quite so badly. Up to this point though, I was invested as although she was annoying me and I had my suspicions as to who was up to no good, I really wanted to know who was responsible, and why.
Unfortunately I felt the ending was a bit disappointing. It was all too fast, a bit jumbled up, there were too many implausible events occurring and just absolutely daft decisions being made. The motive, when revealed felt flimsy. There was just too much going on both with subplots and characters and it got overcomplicated for me. There was however some very clever misdirection before the 'big baddie' reveal and although I did actually suss the perpetrator out quite early on in the book, it threw off a lot of the people I was reading with daily via the Pigeonhole online book club. I was impressed by this subversion and the way the scene had been set to make almost everyone viable as the murderer, it was well done.
The descriptive writing is great and when they go out to see the Northern Lights, I could see exactly what was being described. I felt the chill of the air whenever the outside was mentioned and the panic when things inevitably start to go wrong when away from the station. I found Dr Kate to be a most infuriating character and if I'm honest I didn't really gel with any of the others either, but I think that's the cost of making them all viable suspects to be a killer. You need to stay suspicious.
In summary, The Dark has it's ups and downs - if you can ignore the constant pill-popping and subsequently terrible decisions from the main character, it's an easy, exciting, trepidatious read. If you enjoy sorting out red herrings from real clues this book will have you thinking and you can have a good head scratch over who is picking people off one by one, and why. I think if you can read it in the winter when you can really appreciate the cold and dark it will give it an extra dimension that will only add to the experience.
Our main character, Dr Kate North has managed to bag herself a place on a UNA (United Nations Antarctic Ice Station) research program of some sort – I never quite understood what the point of the program actually was, but it's clear that the ice station is a harsh, unfriendly place to be, and with the winter coming, it's also completely unreachable from the outside for at least six months. In terms of your survival, you might as well be in Space – you can't even breathe outside for more than a few seconds without your lungs beginning to fail due to the extreme cold. Your phone will freeze over if you take it outside. Add to that it's dark 24/7, it's claustrophobic and really not the place for a prescription-drug addicted Doctor with unresolved PTSD leading to mental health issues - (who on earth was running their screening program?).
From the moment we are introduced to her, Kate's behaviour is erratic at best and she necks that many illicit drugs from her medicine cabinet I'm surprised the book wasn't just a series of blank pages as she completely failed to function as a human. However she somehow powers through and starts to poke her nose into the past events on the station that led to her appointment, and her predecessor Jean-Luc dead down an icy ravine. Once she starts to question just what happened, bad things start to happen to her colleagues; nasty "accidents" start to happen and it soon becomes clear that there's a fox in the coop who doesn't want her finding out any more - but who is it and will she live to expose them?
The station crew is 12 strong and there are others outside of that, so there are lots of characters to keep track of - I ended up taking a screenshot on my tablet of the page where they all introduced themselves. Suspicion flits from one to the other, up and down the chain of command and we're never quite sure if Kate is a reliable narrator or if the copious amount of self-medicating that she's doing is actually making her completely addled and we're seeing events solely through her eyes. Towards the end of the book, Kate is forced into a situation where she has to stop taking the drugs completely and rather than this having a negative effect on her, she implausibly seems to turn into some kind of superhero; so much more capable and cognitively 'with it' than she has been at any point before which left me a tad confused - sobering up does not happen that fast, especially to someone who is abusing meds quite so badly. Up to this point though, I was invested as although she was annoying me and I had my suspicions as to who was up to no good, I really wanted to know who was responsible, and why.
Unfortunately I felt the ending was a bit disappointing. It was all too fast, a bit jumbled up, there were too many implausible events occurring and just absolutely daft decisions being made. The motive, when revealed felt flimsy. There was just too much going on both with subplots and characters and it got overcomplicated for me. There was however some very clever misdirection before the 'big baddie' reveal and although I did actually suss the perpetrator out quite early on in the book, it threw off a lot of the people I was reading with daily via the Pigeonhole online book club. I was impressed by this subversion and the way the scene had been set to make almost everyone viable as the murderer, it was well done.
The descriptive writing is great and when they go out to see the Northern Lights, I could see exactly what was being described. I felt the chill of the air whenever the outside was mentioned and the panic when things inevitably start to go wrong when away from the station. I found Dr Kate to be a most infuriating character and if I'm honest I didn't really gel with any of the others either, but I think that's the cost of making them all viable suspects to be a killer. You need to stay suspicious.
In summary, The Dark has it's ups and downs - if you can ignore the constant pill-popping and subsequently terrible decisions from the main character, it's an easy, exciting, trepidatious read. If you enjoy sorting out red herrings from real clues this book will have you thinking and you can have a good head scratch over who is picking people off one by one, and why. I think if you can read it in the winter when you can really appreciate the cold and dark it will give it an extra dimension that will only add to the experience.
I see a lot of fiction now that suggests a ‘locked room’ murder or a novel that is similar to those written by Agatha Christie. By this, I mean the murder could only have been committed by a member of a small group of people. In this novel that group consists of 12 people and it would have been impossible for that murder to have been committed by somebody else because of where it takes place. Antarctica.
I have to admit, Antarctica is a place I have never given much thought to. I wasn’t aware that it was dark most of the time and I had no idea there was a Southern Lights ( Aurora Australis). Whilst reading I quickly decided that it wasn’t somewhere I would like to go and I was happy enough looking at the lights on google images.
The novel is very much a slow burner. The first half of the book shows the mood and friendship in the group disintegrate as the darkness hours lengthen and the realisation that they have no chance of leaving until the weather improves. Kate’s dependancy on drugs increased and she alienated many in the group with her questions about her predecessor.
After the murder occurred I felt that the group dynamic improved slightly initially but it didn’t take long to deteriorate again when other events were revealed. I had some inkling who the murderer was before the end but what was more unique about this novel was trying to guess who the victim would be.
The Dark was an intense and claustrophobic read which I enjoyed immensely.
I have to admit, Antarctica is a place I have never given much thought to. I wasn’t aware that it was dark most of the time and I had no idea there was a Southern Lights ( Aurora Australis). Whilst reading I quickly decided that it wasn’t somewhere I would like to go and I was happy enough looking at the lights on google images.
The novel is very much a slow burner. The first half of the book shows the mood and friendship in the group disintegrate as the darkness hours lengthen and the realisation that they have no chance of leaving until the weather improves. Kate’s dependancy on drugs increased and she alienated many in the group with her questions about her predecessor.
After the murder occurred I felt that the group dynamic improved slightly initially but it didn’t take long to deteriorate again when other events were revealed. I had some inkling who the murderer was before the end but what was more unique about this novel was trying to guess who the victim would be.
The Dark was an intense and claustrophobic read which I enjoyed immensely.
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Eén van de beste boeken die ik recent las. Vooral niet aan beginnen als je de tijd niet hebt om door te lezen.
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes