There is something blithely inventive about White Death that is unusual in this mildly macho thriller about professional hard men doing their thing. The book starts with two preludes--one about Basques fleeing the Inquisition with relics, another about Nazi aeronauts coming to grief in the Arctic--and almost at once skitters off to deal with the heroic Karl Austin rescuing Danish sailors from a sunken cruiser. Apparently, the cruiser was sunk by the anti-whaling activists its crew was trying to arrest, but Austin, charmed by one of them, rapidly proves not all was as it seems. Meanwhile, other friends of his are investigating the death of a fisherman who had told them about giant hungry salmon in Canada... This is an up to the moment thriller that speculates intelligently about the biotech business, and inventively about the nature of nationhood and what men will do for the people they regard proprietorially as theirs. Austin in particular is the focus of nail-biting action and suspense sequences whether racing through sea caves, dog sledding through New York or sword fighting in a Zeppelin. --Roz Kaveney
