Chill out this summer! Fiction set in real cool places....

2182 kHz by David Masiel (2002)

Making his living on the tugs and icebreakers of Alaska's frigid North Slope, Henry Seine dreams of life in a warmer climate, but the lure of the sea draws him back to members of his old crew as they join forces to rescue Louis Moneymaker, a scientist trapped on a melting ice floe.

Afterlands by Steven Heighton (2006)

Provides a fictional chronicle of the real-life ordeal of nineteen men, women, and children cast adrift on an ice floe off the coast of Greenland in 1871 as they struggle with the harsh elements and with each other.

Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson (1998)

A winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his Mars Trilogy, the author follows the struggle of a group of misfits and pioneers to survive the elements in the South Pole, invaded by resource-hungry nations and political extremists.

Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indriðason; translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb. (2009)

The Reykjavik police are called on an icy January day to a garden where a body has been found: a young, dark-skinned boy is frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation and soon unearth tensions simmering beneath the surface of Iceland's outwardly liberal, multicultural society. Meanwhile, the boy's murder forces Erlendur to confront the tragedy in his own past. Soon, facts are emerging from the snow-filled darkness that are more chilling even than the Arctic night.

Arctic Drift by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler. (2008)

When a series of unexplained deaths and international hostilities occur in the wake of a breakthrough discovery to reverse global warming, NUMA director Dirk Pitt and his children investigate a mysterious silvery mineral with links to a fabled Northwest Passage expedition.

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (2006)

In The City, an afterlife world inhabited by the recently departed as long as they remain in the memories of the living, Marion and Phillip Byrd find themselves falling in love again after decades of marriage, while on Earth, their daughter, Laura, is stranded alone in an Antarctic research station, cut off by extreme weather.

The Broken Lands by Robert Edric. (2002)

Imagines what might have occurred on Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition to the the Broken Lands in 1845, when the entire expedition mysteriously vanished.

The Business by Iain Banks (2006)

The Business is a nearly omnipotent and infinitely discreet transglobal organization whose origins predate the Christian Church, if not the Roman Empire (which the Business actually owned for sixty-six days). Financially transparent, internally democratic, and morally dispassionate, the actual business of the Business seems - even to Kate Telman, a senior executive - to be vague to the point of invisibility. Counted among its vast riches are a book of Leonardo cartoons, dozens of Michelangelo's pornographic paintings, and several sets of Crown Jewels. All it lacks is a certain clout in politics, an arena that the Business has avoided for centuries but that has suddenly become of vital importance. No longer satisfied with its permanent base in Antarctica and its fortified Swiss headquarters, the Business is angling to buy its own nation in order to take a seat at the United Nations. A fiercely satirical novel by one of the Britain's greatest living writers.

Choosers of the Slain by James H. Cobb (1966)

In the fall of 2006, the Argentines invade a scientific outpost in Antarctica and begin stripping the continent's precious minerals, and only the USS Cunningham, commanded by Amanda Lee Garrett, is in a position to stop them.

A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow. (1992)

When a National Park ranger is reported missing and the man sent to find him disappears as well, former investigator Kate Shugak decides to brave the cold wilderness of north Alaska to crack the case.

The Ice Child by Elizabeth McGregor. (2001)

Jo, a modern British journalist, investigates the story of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated Arctic expedition of 1845.

Ice Hunt by James Rollins. (2003)

When an American research team discovers a hidden Russian ice station in the frozen abyss of the polar ice cap, a frenzied dual cover-up takes place, trapping an Alaskan couple in the middle of a horrifying scientific experiment.

The Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (2000)

In the desolate regions of Chile, a remarkable discovery has been made. It is a massive meteorite whose existence will change science and mankind forever. An expedition sets out to recover it, but what should be a simple undertaking becomes dangerous, and the bizarre artifact may not be what it seems. When a raging storm drives the tanker beyond the dangerous Antarctic latitude known as the Ice Limit, superstition, egos, and the unknown clash in a stunning finale that will risk the lives of everyone on board.

Ice Run by Steve Hamilton. (2004)

Alex McKnight is in love. Even though he met Natalie Reynaud, an officer from the Ontario Provincial Police, under difficult circumstances, they share a common bond of solitude, as well as the same nightmare - they're both cops who buried their partners. It's Alex's first real relationship in years, which in some ways is terrifying. But Natalie has her own fears to deal with - and her own secrets.

Ice Trap by Kitty Sewell (2008)

Learning that he had fathered twins in icy remote Canada fifteen years earlier, a British surgeon finds his career and marriage rapidly unraveling in the face of painful changes that compel him to confront past demons.

The Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston (2002)

An outcast in nineteenth-century Newfoundland, Devlin Stead receives a letter from explorer Frederick Cook that sends him to New York to become Cook's protégé and to join him in his race to reach the North Pole before his arch-rival Peary.

Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton (2009)

A first entry in a cross-genre series finds a senior investigator examining the savage murder of a city politician in an ancient city besieged by an ice age, thousands of sanctuary-seeking refugees, reports of the walking dead and a serial womanizer who has manipulated his way into the imperial residence.

Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner (2004)

A stirring and vivid novel about a white boy raised among natives on the harsh Alaskan tundra, Ordinary Wolves depicts a life different from what most people have ever known. In its pages, Cutuk, a boy equally uncomfortable in the ways of whites and Inupiaq, tells of his youth and young adulthood: of his father, who brought his family to Alaska from Chicago before Cutuk's birth; of his adopted Inupiaq family; and of the vast Arctic expanse beneath the frozen sky. It is here that Cutuk grows up - hunting, fishing, and living off the land, far away from the grinding, yet beckoning, machine of consumer culture.

Polar Shift by Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos (2005)

When the charismatic leader of an antiglobalization group plans to use the sixty-year-old findings of a Hungarian genius to create a polar shift and give the industrialized nations a jolt before reversing the effect, the NUMA Special Assignments Team must stop him before the world as we know it is destroyed.

Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith. (1989)

Arkady Renko has made too many enemies and now he toils in obscurity on a Russian factory ship in the middle of the Bering Sea. But when a female crew member is picked up dead with the day's catch, Arkady becomes obsessed with the case and once again discovers more than he wants to know and certainly more than he bargained for...

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (2007)

When murder strikes a remote hamlet in the Shetland Islands, and the body of a teenage girl turns up in the winter snow, Inspector Jimmy Perez launches an investigation into the killing that takes him into the heart of sinister secrets from the past.

Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg; translated by Tiina Nunnally. (1993)

When her six-year-old neighbor falls to his death, and no one is willing to suspect foul play, Smilla Qaavigaaq Jasperson finds her own investigation taking her into the files of a Danish company. To read Smilla's Sense of Snow is to be taken on a magical, nerve-shattering journey - from the snow-covered streets of Copenhagen to the awesome beauty of the Arctic ice caps. A mystery, a love story, and an elegy for a vanishing way of life, Smilla's Sense of Snow is a breathtaking achievement, an exceptional feat of storytelling.

The Solitude of Thomas Cave by Georgina Harding (2007)

In 1616, the crew of an English whaling ship prepares to sail home, except for Thomas Cave, who has accepted a wager from his shipmates--to endure a winter alone on an Arctic island--and prepares for months of solitude and harsh weather.

Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child. (2009)

When a scientific expedition discovers a giant cat frozen in the Alaskan wilderness, the media conglomerate sponsoring the trip makes plans to thaw out the creature on live television, unaware that it is an ancient killing machine that may not be dead.

The Trudeau Vector by Juris Jurjevics (2005)

When three members of the Trudeau Research Center scientific team are murdered at the onset of an arctic winter, epidemiologist Jessica Hanley finds her investigation intersecting with the secret mission of a decorated admiral from Moscow, who has been assigned to locate a missing submarine.

The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett (1998)

The author combines fact and fiction to follow Erasmus Darwin Wells, the nineteenth-century naturalist, on his reckless pursuit of an open polar sea.

Voyage to the North Star by Peter Nichols (1999)

A rich New Yorker with ambitions to be a big-game hunter buys a yacht and sails to the Arctic to hunt polar bear. It turns out to be a foolhardy enterprise, only saved from disaster by the stoker, a former ship's captain.

7/10

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