An old-fashioned adventure yarn...[Nichols's] story pulses with action that is given an extra measure of verisimilitude by his deep knowledge of boats and the sea and the watery landscapes of the Far North. - Richard Bernstein, New York Times. As harrowing as a tale by Jack London, its vision as haunting as Joseph Conrad's, this masterful novel of maritime adventure crosses the paths of Carl Schenck, a ruthless industrialist whose wealth is as fabulous as his big-game hunter's appetite for blood is limitless, and Will Boden, a seaman down on his luck. It is Schenck's blind resolve to launch an Arctic safari that affords Boden the opportunity to do what no seasoned seaman would, and flouting his own foreboding, he signs on with the Lodestar, a yacht luxuriously appointed for pleasure but drastically ill-equipped for navigating the Arctic. Together, these two men are bound in an epic misadventure that confronts them with not only the perils of the polar seas but also a horrifying moral disaster. "Its major themes consciously derived from those of Conrad and Melville...[it is] a fiercely eventful novel. " - New York Times; "A finely crafted adventure and a crackling good read. " - Chicago Tribune; "An impressive first novel...A literary page-turner that is driven as much by ideas and the writing as plot and characters. " - USA Today.