Sen. Jim Inhofe would hate Karen Dionne’s FREEZING POINT, so there’s one good reason to read it. Another is that it’s an engrossing technothriller, too good and too assured to be a debut novel, and yet it is. The cover compares her to Michael Crichton, and the parallel is not entirely unwarranted, given the hard science behind the story’s heavy thrills. Except her politics run directly against Crichton’s, as set forth in STATE OF FEAR.
FREEZING POINT uses climate change as a jumping-off point, particularly in regards to the world’s water supply as a finite resource. Fat-cat corporations see dollar signs in an idea to turn icebergs into drinking water that’ll quench the thirst of millions. After all, they’re just going to melt in the ocean anyway, right?
The novel’s evil firm du jour is the Soldyne Corporation, eager to utilize its new microwave-beam technology to melt some ‘bergs and make some coin, even if that means busting off some chunks of Antarctica before their time, to speed things along. But what it doesn’t count on is that the water inside is contaminated with a virus that claims many lives on the icy’s continent’s research base. Oh, and it doesn’t count on the teams of man-eating rats.
Yes, the rats. Other books would hold the rat angle until toward the end, making you wonder just what the threat is. That works just fine in horror, but in a pure thriller, it’s smart not to hold that back. Dionne shows us just what the rodents are capable of right from the start, so there’s no second-guessing the threat. They’re absolutely ferocious, so the unease is ever-present.
Caught in the crosshairs of profit and preservation are a pregnant researcher, an idealistic activist and an anything-for-a-buck CEO, among many others. I thought that there were too many characters upfront, but as it turns out, that’s not a problem, as Dionne dispenses with a ton of them pretty quickly — a good thing, too, as I was confusing some sound-alike names: Susan and Sarah, Eugene and Elliott.
While the last sixth of the novel engaged into one Hollywood-esque action sequence too many for my tastes, all’s otherwise well in the waters of Dionne’s debut. I suspect she’ll get even better. —Rod Lott
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