"Impossible to put down--Impossible to forget!!"

Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead, is back with a second, more harrowing novel, Big Ice. This well- researched thriller is thick with tension and suspense. Jonnes manages to start the book with action, end it with action, and fill all of the chapters between with action.

Running from his past, Seth Peterson finds himself living and working in the nation's capitol for the National Ice Center (NCI). The center monitors is a joint venture coupling the Naval Ice Center, NOAA, and the Coast Guard. Their goal is to accomplish the national mission of providing global ice analyses and forecasts. When hunks of ice calve off from the Ross Ice Shelf, we are talking about more than a mere iceberg that is being monitored. Peterson's research may help prepare the world for when a calving sheet of ice the size of Mexico occurs. Such a calving will displace enough water to bury coastal cities like New York, Tokyo and California under more than 200 feet of water.

Dedicating the last twelve months on intense research, Peterson is finally forced to update the team at the NCI. He has an acute problem. He suffers from severe panic attacks. These attacks keep him from being able to speak to groups of people. This phobia is what caused him to upset his life before and it is once again threatening to ruin his present.

When his supervisor agrees to let another team member make the presentation, Peterson thinks all is well. When the presenter is murdered at the convention, it isn't long before Peterson realizes the shooter was hoping to kill him. A break-in at his apartment confirms the suspicion when his computer disk with all of his research on it is the only thing stolen in the burglary.

Someone does not want Peterson's research brought to light and will stop at nothing to ensure his silence.

This is a smart, hard-hitting thriller. But I expect no less from Jonnes, who blew me away with his first novel, WAKE UP DEAD. His facts are intriguing; to think that a natural disaster, worse than any earthquake is out there waiting to happen is frightening. Jonnes is skilled at incorporating dialogue, taut chapters and three-dimensional characters to strengthen and solidify this already impressive and unique story line. BIG ICE is easy to get into and hard to put down and will be impossible to forget.

Reviewed by Phillip Tomasso
Posted August 10, 2003

Summary

Reclusive polar ice researcher, Seth Peterson, has located a doomsday fault, which could allow the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—a hunk of ice a mile-and-a-half-thick and as big as Mexico—to slide off the continent and flood coastal cities, ending the world as we know it. Millions of people worldwide would perish in the resulting chaos and famine. This knowledge—and his heroics at a fateful traffic accident—puts Seth reluctantly under the scrutiny of media, law enforcement, and a band of environmental extremists desperate to make an obscure, overdue prophecy come true. Their cataclysmic objective seems terrifyingly believable to Seth—as does their plan to exterminate him, the only living witness to their scheme. In fear for his life, Seth escapes to the icy shores of a Minnesota lake, where he must confront these extremists in order to prevent a potential disaster.