First of all thanks to @netgalley and @hodderbooks for this free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was an excellent whodunnit locked-room mystery in the hostile environments of Antarctica!

Kate is a young A&E doctor, struggling with PTSD after a horrific car accident. To banish her bad memories, she takes a job as a doctor at a UN research station in the harsh conditions of Antarctica, with only 12 other crew members, months of complete darkness and no way to leave after the last plane takes off before winter sets in!

When one of the crew is found dead after openly voicing his suspicions about the mysterious death of the previous doctor, Kate begins to wonder if there is a murderer among them.

The beginning was a little slow, as the author sets the scene for us and we are introduced to each one of the characters. But the story soon picks up casting you head-on toward a heart stopping collision as Kate’s secret addiction to her overprescribed meds spirals out of control and she frantically tries to uncover the truth before the killer strikes again.

Towards the end I was flipping through the pages, suspecting each one of them. I kept praying that Kate would keep her wits about her as she tried to cope with opiate withdrawal, surviving sub-zero temperatures, finding the killer while having to perform a last-minute surgery with the power down!
Talk about adrenaline thrillers… and no, I didn’t guess who the killer was!

The perfect read for anyone wanting to escape the summer heat!

In the depths of an Antarctic mid-winter, a group of researchers living at a remote facility cut off from the outside world, settle down to watch The Thing. You know – that movie where a group of researchers at a remote facility in Antarctica discover a parasitic alien who makes all of the characters paranoid and ends up with most of them dead. In Emma Haughton’s The Dark, her group of researchers watching the movie is a tradition. But it also tells you pretty much everything you need to know about this paranoid and tensely atmospheric novel.

The Dark, Haughton’s debut, follows Kate North, a doctor who is escaping some nasty demons by signing up for a stint at a research facility in Antarctica. She arrives to a fairly warm welcome from most of her fellow winterers, but soon discovers that beneath the surface swirl currents of unrest and paranoia. The previous doctor, killed in a tragic climbing accident, might have been trying to solve a mystery before he died. And when people start to be picked off one by one, Kate realises that somewhere in their midst is a killer – and with no chance of outside help arriving till after the winter season, they are very much on their own.

There is almost nothing better than a locked room mystery if it is done well, and Haughton is definitely proving herself here with an impressive debut effort. Her writing is tight and plotting good, but she also excels at creating atmosphere and a real sense of place. In describing the sheer vastness, the emptiness of Antarctica, she plants her reader firmly in the ice and snow alongside the characters, and doesn’t let up for a moment. Kate is afraid of the dark, and any scene where she is forced to spend time with the lights off creates a real feeling of anxiety for the reader.

Early on in the novel, Kate observes the myriad of technical equipment around her on the base, and wonders what would happen if that equipment failed them. Humans in general, but especially those at the isolated facility, are so dependent on the technology to keep them safe that the idea of it not being there is hard to comprehend. As the technology does begin to fail later on, and the characters are losing the sense of control that they have over the harsh environment, it throws Kate’s earlier observations into dramatic light. A locked room mystery relies on a lack of control, for the killer and the people around them, as everything begins to unravel – and Haughton amplifies that feeling by making the very buildings that her characters live in feel unsafe and dangerous.

She also covers a lot of sensitive material in her story, from substance abuse to serious mental illness. For many of the characters, such topics are par for the course if you’re wintering in the extreme environment of Antarctica; Kate has a cupboard full of strong pills and carte blanche to dish them out should people need them. They watch The Thing to make fun of the very real demons of paranoia and fear. They take strong pills and self-medicate to cope with the winter. It is just how it is. But Haughton questions these takes, interrogates her characters, and makes them realise that these attitudes are all fuelling the very real fires that they end up battling. Coping methods are one thing, and they are all well and good. But sometimes we have to face the demons head on, if we are going to survive. It is quite a deep message to find in a thriller like this, but a welcome one, handled well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC of this book.
Release date: 19th August 2021.

The Dark takes place on a research base in Antarctica and revolves around mystery and murder both in the past and present. Dr. Kate North has left her life behind to work on the base as a last-minute replacement doctor. When she gets there, she finds out that the previous doctor has died - although she doesn't yet know how...

Emma Haughton creates a good atmosphere of silence and secrecy and uses the harsh conditions of Antarctica well to add to the mood of the characters. You can always feel the fear of what the environment itself can do to people - not just the others on the base.

The cast of characters work well, and Haughton successfully has you guessing and changing your mind over who is ultimately responsible for the murders. I was almost sad that my first guess was correct, as she worked hard to make several characters viable killers.

The main character Kate is who we view the story through, and she is the only downfall of the book. Although some of her character is explained through her trauma and substance abuse, she is quite repetitive beyond just creating the air of mystery and monotony. Maybe this was the point, but several of her other characters have more depth even without a great insight into their lives. Sonya and Caro are my favourites.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Dark and it creates a great mystery in an environment that is just as dangerous as the murderer.

Really enjoyed this book, managed to finish it in a day which I more or less unheard of for me to be honest.

I literally couldn’t put it down, it’s a easy read, very fast paced, and just sucks you in. I couldn’t believe when I got to the end of it so quickly as it just flew over.

I loved the main character who I feel I got to know so well, and it just kept me guessing all the time - when I wasn’t terrified….

My thanks to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the copy in exchange for an honest review

The Dark is a slow burning closed room whodunnit set In the freezing dark of the Antarctic Tundra.

Brooding and atmospheric it’s very well written as Emma Haughton tells a story of 12 people working on a base, when a body turns up they realise they have a murderer amongst them.

In what really is a low burn the first half of the book meanders a little as the characters are introduced and shaped. Of the characters only really Ark, the Russian engineer is particularly likeable, the rest are hard to connect with and Kate the protagonist is especially hard to like and root for.

It’s a good read, I’d happily recommend but there was something lacking for me.

I thought this sounded interesting. However I didn't like the main character, sometimes I can live with that, but I struggled on this occasion. Also the pace of the book was quite slow, and I am an impatient reader. Hope others like it more.

I received a copy of this e-arc in exchange for an honest review thanks to NetGalley and Hodder Books.

I really enjoyed this book!

It’s an alternate take on the locked-room mystery, this one being set in Antartica at a researcher station.

I couldn’t see where the mystery element of story was until about half way through. It just seemed like all the characters didn’t want to talk about their previous team member who’d died in an accident. Except, it wasn’t an accident was it?

All the little details to each characters storyline distracted me from the killer’s mission so it completely surprised me when the killer was revealed.

I felt like once the killer was revealed, the ending was rushed. I’d like to see more of the aftermath, how each of the characters dealt with the fact that someone they liked and cared for wasn’t who they thought they were.

The whole book is in Kate’s POV which was fine, seeing everything from her view and not getting the other characters or the killer’s view of what’s been happening.

However, because of the sheer number of characters, I did forget who was who for a big proportion of the book. I do think it would’ve helped to have a couple of other POVs to help keep track of everyone - or less characters!

As I'm much too ginger to really enjoy the sun, I've developed a bit of a fascination with cold places. Holidays in Alaska, Russia or Norway - count me in! With that in mind, it was the setting of Antarctica that brought me to this book - and I am so glad it did.

Thanks to NetGalley for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The story opens with Kate, our main character and a medical doctor, arriving at a research station in the Antarctic. She has her own reasons for taking the remote job and steps at short notice into a role recently held by a doctor who died in an accident on the ice. As the team shrinks down to core staff for the winter, only 13 people remain at the facility, When that number becomes 12, Kate begins to question whether the death is part of a bigger picture. Not knowing who she can trust, she begins a dangerous investigation...

This is a genuinely tense and exciting thriller - I couldn't put it down as I watched Kate navigate her way through some excruciatingly tense events and situations. Given the fact that Kate is herself an unreliable narrator (not a spoiler), I was drawn into guessing and second-guessing all the time. I didn't manage to get anywhere near the solution but I had a lot of fun trying.

The setting is the real strength of this novel. The dangerous and inhospitable Antarctic surroundings really add to the tension, especially when the research facility closes down to core staff only for the 24 hours a day darkness that the winter season brings. Haughton perfectly captures the peril inherent in living in such extreme conditions - the disorientating and unnavigable whiteness, the reliance on generators and supplies, the lack of contact with the outside world. There is a real sense of claustrophobia that will probably be a whole lot more understandable to readers now after the various Covid lockdowns!

The day to day realities of living in these remote conditions make up a lot of the novel and Haughton seems to have done some seriously extensive research into this. Between all the heart-in-mouth moments, I found it fascinating to see how people cope with living in these circumstances. Details about clothes, weather, food supplies, communications, the base's layout and the science experiments are woven into the fabric of the novel seamlessly. So interesting, but so extreme!

I loved the fact that this is essentially a mystery with a closed circle of suspects. There is no way anyone can come from outside, so the reader is left to guess which of the research station's 'inmates' is dodgy - and there is an international and diverse cast to choose from. I did find it a bit tricky to remember who was who at the beginning - a reference list would have been handy. I found myself really liking some characters before (like Kate) remembering that they could easily be a criminal!

I'd recommend this to anyone who loves truly tense thrillers - the monotony of daily life at the research centre (although I found this bit really intereresting!) is perfectly offset with the paranoia that everyone could be an enemy. If you like psychological mysteries with a finite number of possible suspects (think along the lines of Ruth Ware and Catherine Cooper books) then this is for you.

As for me, as much as I love cold places, I will give Antarctica a miss!

Imagine being marooned for many months with half a dozen strangers, in the harshest environment on earth, quite literally in the dark. That’s where doctor Kate goes, to an Antarctic research station, to over-winter with the skeleton crew. She’s hiding from a series of tragic mistakes she made in her personal and professional life – and she’s gone to the ends of the earth to escape her past. But instead of the peace she needs, Kate rapidly discovers that the death of the previous doctor might not’ve been an accident. And his murderer has no qualms about killing again to protect his secrets…
This setup has all the hallmarks of a ripping thriller. Four months of bitter winter: 24 hours of black night, every night. An external environment so hostile it’ll destroy unprotected human life within minutes. A gaggle of misfits, marooned together for months with minimal contact with the civilised world. The perfect place for a murder mystery, in fact.
But sadly this author can’t quite pull it off, despite having all the props in place. In the same way that you can normally tell when an author is describing a city that they’ve only visited on googlemaps, so I got the impression that Emma Houghton’s Antarctica was well-researched, rather than written from real life. I’ve spent some small time in Arctic environments, and her descriptions struck me as ‘secondhand’, somehow – technically true, perhaps, but lacking in authenticity. I didn’t feel the bitter brilliance of snowblindness saturating my eyes, nor struggle to take a tiny breath through my nose, terrified that if I gulped great mouthfuls of air it would freeze my lungs into tiny crystalline trees – fragile, waiting to shatter under the immense Arctic sky. The environment in The Dark felt far more… academic.
However, as a setting for an Agatha Christie-style locked room mystery, it works perfectly well. The over-wintering research crew are a mismatched bunch, all of them hiding something, and a hundred years ago this story could so easily have taken place in an rural retreat, a stately home miles from anywhere. Instead, the saturating blackness of Antarctica adequately isolates the victims and the killer, and provides plenty of opportunity for paranoia to overwhelm them…
There’s a lovely tip of the hat to John Carpenter’s The Thing, and the traditions of the over-wintering crews, plus plenty of technical detail. I never warmed to the protagonist, Kate, who seemed woefully overwhelmed by… well, everything. I wouldn’t want her to be my A&E doctor, that’s for sure. The plot depends upon her making multiple mistakes, clumsily wrecking relationships and inspiring enemies in an increasingly debilitating narcotic fug. I found myself wishing for a competent investigator, someone a little less over-wrought.
Not the best ‘stranded in the snow’ story I’ve ever read, then, but an entertaining interlude in an exotic location. If you prefer a more authentic Arctic setting, where the author genuinely captures the local culture and the stark reality of life on the ice, then try Seven Graves, One Winter instead. Set in Greenland, it’s both poetic and chilling, and not simply because of the sub-zero temperatures…
6/10

‘White. Endless, featureless, mind-numbing white. A white so bright it hurts your eyes, at once beautiful and dreadful. I’ve arrived, finally, at the end of the earth – or rather its southernmost tip.‘
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WARNING, read this book in a nice warm bath or wrapped up in bed as the cold creeps out of the writing and into your bones!! … Now that you’re settled in and warm, just another heads up, you’re gonna love this book!
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A&E doctor Kate North has been knocked out of her orbit by a personal tragedy. So when she’s offered the chance to be an emergency replacement at the UN research station in Antarctica, she jumps at the opportunity. The previous doctor, Jean-Luc, died in a tragic accident while out on the ice.
The move seems an ideal solution for Kate: no one knows about her past; no one is checking up on her. But as total darkness descends for the winter, she begins to suspect that Jean-Luc’s death wasn’t accidental at all. And the more questions she asks, the more dangerous it becomes for them all…
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This book was such an engrossing read! I loved the setting so much and felt like I knew every step of the Antarctic base. A wonderfully nuanced take on the locked room mystery, with literally everyone completely locked… in the Antarctic, over winter, with no hopes of seeing or hearing from anyone for a good few months. All in all such a clever thriller that had me absolutely stumped at the end as to who was behind these mysterious deaths.
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Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for the ARC!!

Emma Haughton has delivered a first rate locked room mystery, set in the Antarctic and it gave me literal goosebumps. Kate gives up her A and E job to go to an Antarctic stibnite as the medic. Her predecessor died in unusual circumstances and some of the station residents hold one person responsible for the death.

The first quarter of the book really invests in setting the scene. The dark of the title are the endless months when there’s no daylight. Temperature outside is below minus 50, and it’s permanent night. This section, for me, really lays out the starkness and isolation of this inhospitable area. It’s a reality; research scientists spend months there and it’s difficult to imagine a more hostile climate. Add to that a mix of personalities and backgrounds, all enclosed in an artificial environment for months and claustrophobia and tensions soon mount. Emma Haughton really creates the reality and then throws in the mystery of the previous doctor’s death and the setting is spot on for the main event.

The cold is almost palpable, the darkness is terrifying, the growing tensions and recriminations are well imagined and each of the central characters has intrigue. Loved this chiller thriller and my thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

The Dark is a creepy and chilling thriller that reminiscent of The Thing (which has a little cameo here!!) with its research station cut off from the rest of world. And it’s this environment that Kate decides will be the right place for her to escape her past. Of course, a vulnerable and mentally unstable woman is probably the last person that should be put in charge of the medical needs of the resident staff but when she looks into the death of the previous doctor, it looks like her personal tragedy might make her the perfect person to discover the truth. But locked away for weeks with a possible murderer also means that her interfering puts them all at risk…especially Kate herself.

Kate is a complex character, driven in her need to investigate her predecessors accident by her own personal demons. How she passed any psychological tests to take up her new position was a mystery in itself as she was a very damaged woman! Her drug taking made her an unlikeable character much of the time and she made some incredibly stupid decisions that meant I had little sympathy for her, but that didn’t take away any of the concern for her and the other occupants of the station. In fact nearly everyone had secrets to keep and pasts to hide so anyone could have been responsible for the incidents that start to happen the minute Kate arrives. A cast of unlikeable and unsympathetic characters didn’t make this book less of a compulsion for me though as I do love a read where you have a huge choice of suspects and this reminded me of Murder on the Orient Express at times with a host of suspects stranded together.

Emma Haughton has written a compelling storyline with a stunning setting that is visually delivered by this descriptive narrative. I could see it working well visually as a film or tv drama as it has that “hiding behind a cushion” feel to it where the tension becomes almost unbearable at times. Atmospheric and tautly plotted, The Dark is a gripping psychological thriller from start to finish.

Kate, an A & E doctor, takes up a year long post at a UN research station in Antarctica following the sudden death of the station's previous doctor. Kate has had a rough time of late following a personal tragedy that has left her deeply unhappy and dependant on prescription medication. The new job and a fresh start could be the makings of her or it could be a disaster. Her 12 colleagues at the research station seem to be a good, friendly bunch, with the odd exception. But things start going downhill very quickly once Kate realises how easy it is to take advantage of the huge stash of medication she is responsible for, especially once her own, personal supply mysteriously goes missing. She also hears some disturbing rumours about the circumstances of her predecessor's death. With the onset of an Antarctica winter and its constant darkness, plus the worry of a potential thief and murderer in their midst, life at the research station becomes very fraught to say the least. Then a body is found out on the ice...

This is a very atmospheric mystery with a wonderful setting. The bleak wilderness of Antarctica, particularly when the winter darkness set in, is extremely eerie and one of the best bits of this book. I personally found the mystery story line to be a little light weight and predictable, but I still enjoyed the book and whizzed through it in no time.

I was gripped from the first chapter and thoroughly enjoyed the entire book.

There are 12 characters so it took me a little while to get used to who was who but the entire book is from 1 perspective which was a welcome change to most of the thrillers I've read recently.

The setting is described so vividly that I felt like I knew what it would feel like to work at the ice station, I think these attention to detail made me enjoy the book so much more. The plot is probably one you'll guess as it unfolds but I still had the best time reading it.

The Dark is an atmospheric thriller set in the cold and unhospitable Antartica .The story is told through Kate the Doctor who is sent to replace the Base Doctor who died in an accident at the United Nations Antartic Ice Station.There are twelve people in the Team who are there all Winter and members of the Team keep dying !!! so the atmosphere is creepy and scary who is the Killer ? However I found Kate's character very annoying ,always popping pills or thinking about them, surely an addict ,should she be working as a Doctor? Also making foolish decisions and generally blundering about . .The ending was quite exciting I didn't guess who the Killer was but the reasons for the Killer to begin a killing spree remains a mystery ! Many thanks to the Publisher ,the Author and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest review .

From the premise of The Dark I thought this book would be right up my street. It’s February 2021 and Dr Kate North has just begun her twelve month stint on a UN research station in Antarctica. She jumped at the chance of this experience after suffering a personal tragedy. It’s somewhere to start anew as no one knows of her past. The previous doctor died in a tragic accident out on the ice but as Kate settles in, she has a feeling his death wasn’t an accident. The more questions she asks, the more danger they all seem to be in.

This book is a locked room mystery and whilst some parts are thrilling and build a sense of anxiety there are other parts I feel let it down. There are some great twists but personally I really couldn’t gel with Kate’s character at all. I also felt it lacked pace in a couple of areas and I also guessed who the murderer was pretty early on. I would rate this book 3.5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley, Hodder and Stoughton and the author for the chance to review.

A chilling murder mystery set in a research station on the icy waste of Antartica. Claustrophobic, a slow burn of a novel which should have had more pace.

It's no surprise that I loved this book as a thriller set in a snowy environment pretty much guarantees 5-stars from me. I was fascinated by the insight into working and living on an Antartic research station - a world I know nothing about but could totally picture through the author's vivid and atmospheric descriptions. I felt the isolation, darkness, danger and tension as if I was there. With the base completely inaccessible for eight months of the year it was also the perfect setting for a true locked room thriller with no escape, no help and only twelve possible suspects. In the end the reveal was pretty meh but I loved the build up so much it didn't matter

3,5 Stars

This book triggers one of my favorite settings: cold and unforgiving environments. I hate winter and cold and snow but I love to read about stories about it. So this book sounded right up to my alley and it did not disappoint.

Kate gets a job as a doctor on an Antarctic station for the winter. That means no light for several months and no way to get out of there during that time. Kate suffers herself from posttraumatic experiences and she is addicted to pills after an accident. Her predecessor died in a climbing accident and Kate soon thinks that something about his death is suspicious.

I always like a good story based in a cold and cruel setting. So this book clicked all my boxes. It is a gripping thriller about a dozen people packed together in an Antarctic station and one of them is obvious a killer. It is not a very unique thriller but I liked the setting, obviously. I did guess the killer very early on, but that did not falter my interested in the story.

But there are some issued that failed to make it a great book. Kate is a very flawed character. She is not one I could connect to. She is a bit awkward. Sometimes she also seems not to be very clever. She makes a lot of mistakes handling their situation. She knows immediately that she handled a situation in a wrong way but she never seems to learn from it. This was a bit frustrating to read. She sometimes just seems so weird, so awkward. And she never seems to realize that the killer might be among them. But somehow everybody in this station seems to love her. I cannot imagine why. The other thing that really got on my nerves was the overuse of the question “you ok?”. Everybody is asking this question to anybody they are talking to all the time. I was about to scream loud at my kindle if I ever should read that sentence again. But in the end it was an entreating read in one of my favorite settings

Emma Haughton writes a thriller set in the vast unforgiving, desolate landscape of the Antarctic, beautiful but hostile. particularly in the winter months when the dark descends on the region. It is 2021, the flawed A&E Dr Kate North is left traumatised and broken after a personal tragedy, struggling to cope, so when she is offered the opportunity of becoming a relief medic on an Antarctic research station looking after a 12 member team, she jumps at the chance, becoming the 13th team member. However, whether she is really in a position to fulfill the duties required, given the current state of her mental health, in such a remote and bleak location, cut off from the world for the winter months is not something she considered, and neither, suprisingly, do those who recruit her for such a challenging position.

The troubled Kate is replacing her predecessor, Jean-Luc, who met with an accident, something she soon becomes aware that not everyone believes it was an accident, suspicions, paranoia and tensions run rife on the station. The pill popping Kate is not made to feel unwelcome and feels the hostility, and makes poor decisions, and there is a killer amongst them as she embarks on a dangerous, chilling and twisted investigation, and we learn of her past in the narrative. There are many aspects of this locked room mystery I enjoyed, chief among them the atmospheric and rich descriptions of the harsh and frozen Antarctic landscape. However, I found it difficult to invest in any of the characters, including Kate.

Overall, this is a claustrophobic, dark and engaging read for the most part, but the mystery part was not as compelling as I would have liked. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.