A Book Review of Deception Island by Judith A. Boss

• Book: Deception Island
• Location: Antarctica
• Author: Judith A Boss

Review Author: jbgentoo

Review by
Kathy Wurtz, Former Executive Director of
The New Hampshire Writers’ Project.

The uncanny beauty of Antarctica serves as a stunning backdrop to Judith Boss’s novel Deception Island. Dr. Grace McAllister, a trusted colleague, calls Rachel St. Claire, a young evolutionary anthropologist who is searching for her own roots, away from a dig in Afghanistan. Rachel believes they are going to Antarctica to examine a new link in the evolutionary chain, an unusual humanoid body found in an ice cave. Instead, Rachel finds herself swept up in a mystery that harkens back to the beginning of humanity, as we know it today, and the reader is swept right up with her.

From the first chapter when Rachel finds a mysterious pendant with strange shifting symbols in Afghanistan and is later rescued from bandits by Grace’s handsome young nephew, Trevor, Boss creates a world that draws the reader in with intrigue, romance, and plenty of action. The novel is set in a time when planes can be rented and preprogrammed with a destination, and global warming has become so bad, icebergs are being towed to the continents to be melted down for drinking water. With that kind of technology is does not take long for Rachel to travel from the heat of Afghanistan to the unearthly cold and white of Antarctica. And that’s where things really start to take off.

Boss does a superb job in using the fierce and alien beauty of Antarctica to heighten the suspense as bioterrorists, who are carrying out genetic experiments in an abandoned underground World War II Nazi base under the Antarctic ice, enter the scene. As penguins and leopard seals scamper and slither across the beauty and fierceness of Antarctica, Rachel learns about love and betrayal, and discovers that things are not always what they seem. Deception Island is a fun and exciting read that will whisk you away to new and wondrous worlds and warm your heart with romance and hope.

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