A team of 6 archaeologists travel to a remote and unpopulated place on the west coast of Greenland to excavate a Viking settlement. However the group members fail to 'gel' and gradually they realise that their leader hasn't brought enough food or made firm arrangements for them to be collected at the end of their stay. The story is narrated by each of the team in turn but mostly by Nina, who soon becomes aware of a ghostly stranger in their midst. She thinks it is a Viking, who is unhappy that the team are digging up human skeletons in a graveyard. The rest of the team think Nina is just neurotic. Meanwhile back in the rest of the world a flu pandemic is spreading across the world. Then the team's communication links with the outside world fail and no one comes to pick them up, as the long dark cold Arctic winter approaches and their food runs out. The story then ends abruptly with the survivors having been rescued and returning to their homes. However details of the rescue are absent and it all feels a bit unsatisfactory and unclear with several unanswered questions, e.g. who rescued them, and what was the outcome of the pandemic. The book reminded me of Michel Paver's Dark Matter but it much less convincing or terrifying than that excellent book, which is set on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the 1930s. 6/10
10th August 2012
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