Whiteout

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I tend to be a big fan of a lot of things. I know you might think when I say this that I am blowing smoke. But what I am about to say couldn't be any truer that anything I have ever posted on this blog.

I want to live in Antarctica!

 I love snow. I love the cold. I love the isolation. A dream job of mine would be to do a 9 month shift during the winter months as the head chef of a research station cafeteria or canteen. 

One of the big selling points is that all stationed on a research station on the frigid continent must read for 2 hours a day! It's scheduled so that you keep your mind active as cabin fever and trouble adjusting to permanent dark can screw with a person's mental state. And you get paid to read during that 2 hour window! 

Throw in a cat and this scenario would be heaven for me. And for lead character Special Deputy U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, her cushy job at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, is a dream assignment. That is until she literally stumbles upon a pair of deep-froze corpses.

The discovery marks the first suspicious deaths on neutral Antarctica. As the only sanctioned law-enforcement on the frozen plain, Carrie's not even allowed to carry a sidearm, least she violate countless treaties. But as the body count begins to mount, Stetko will find herself teetering the edge of diplomacy as her investigation takes her to the research stations of several other nations. 

With her superiors breathing down her neck, Carrie has the added pressure of finding the culprit before all of the compounds clear out in time for the winter purge. Agent Stetko will find help and hindrances along the way. But her biggest nemesis will be the forbidding ice and cold of the South Pole! Can Carrie solve this tangled web of crime before the clues are buried under a blizzard of snow and deceit?

I saw the 2009 movie starring Kate Beckinsale and I loved it. I also had read the first 1 or 2 issues of this story and again loved it. But I never could get my hands on the last two chapters. Finally, I just recently got this collected edition and Wow! I was freakin' blown away by it. Greg Rucka's writing is much more gritty than the R-rated live-action version. And I love it!

The artwork by Steve Lieber (Hawkman) was fantastic. I didn't realize that those research stations were such a dump. That's definitely one thing that was over-glamorized in the film. This book is from 1998. So despite the grime, as long as smoking has been banned at the South Pole, I still wanna live there!

A great frozen crime thriller that doesn't end up as a cold case. And with 2 more miniseries continuing Stetko's tenure down under, I still have some more sub-zero mayhem to look forward to!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.