A doomed ship in the waters around Iceland that has experienced tragedy across several crews is at the center A Haunting in the Arctic by C.J. Cooke. The Ormen is a whaling ship with a dark history, two of its crews have disappeared over the years. Cooke tells a dark, painful, tragic story in two timelines – 1901 & 2023.
The year is 1901, and Nicky is attacked, then wakes on board the Ormen, a whaling ship embarked on what could be its last voyage. With land still weeks away, it’s just her, the freezing ocean, and the crew – and they’re all owed something only she can give them…
Now, over one hundred years later, the wreck of the Ormen has washed up on the forbidding, remote coast of Iceland. It’s scheduled to be destroyed, but explorer Dominique feels an inexplicable pull to document its last days, even though those who have ventured onto the wreck before her have met uncanny ends.
Onboard the boat, Dominique will uncover a dark past riddled with lies, cruelty, and murder—and her discovery will change everything. Because she’ll soon realize she’s not alone. Something has walked the floors of the Ormen for almost a century. Something that craves revenge.
Cooke provides a brief view into a tragedy that took place on the Ormen in 1973 when the dismembered corpse of a scientist is found inside the locked room of the ship. There are also drawings of an aquatic woman and the words “She is on board.” From there, Cooke flashes back to 1901 when a young woman named Nicky Dunthie, whose father owns the Ormen is trying to keep his whaling business afloat pun intended, but it makes sense here! Poor Nicky is knocked out and finds herself aboard the Ormen with a very unfriendly crew. She is being held against her will as a “Selkie Wife.” It is not a good position to be in, to put it extremely mildly.
Cooke then flashes forward more than a century to December 2023 focusing on an explorer named Dominique who arrives on the Icelandic coast to search the “corpse” of the Ormen with an enormous snowstorm on the horizon. She is aware of some of its history and wants to learn more about its secrets and to document whatever she finds on the vessel before its scheduled destruction. Dom soon learns she is not alone. A group of explorers have the same idea as Dom: find out everything about the ship, learn its secrets before the storm and anything else can destroy the Ormen. But this crew has a secret, Dom knows she shouldn’t trust them, but finds she has little choice in the matter because she is determined to learn as much about the Ormen as she possibly can. The three explorers are equally determined.
The 1901 storyline is brutal, filled with despair, extremely intense, and uncomfortable. I’m not going into specifics in this review, but imagine one woman aboard a boat with desperate, vindictive, craven men and you might have some idea of what a Selkie Wife is. If you are uncomfortable reading about violence against women – repeated violence against women – be warned, a lot of that happens to Nicky in 1901. There are small sparks of hope and light, but they don’t last very long.
As for the 2023 storyline with Dom, she begins hearing voices and seeing strange figures on and near the ship. She is also noticing the glances her 3 “partners” share with each other, how their shared history creeps into some of the dialogue that works to push Dom away putting into question the thin veneer of trust she has with these three people.
I tend to enjoy novels that feature parallel storylines. When an author who has the writing chops Cooke possesses manages to drop hints in one storyline about the other storyline, it can make for a very rewarding reading experience, just as it did here in A Haunting in the Arctic. I also enjoy trying to figure out how and if the storylines connect, which can make for an intriguing guessing game. Cooke does that quite well here, too. I also appreciated the characters, I felt such sympathy and dread for Nicky and I found myself worrying for Dom and her three “partners.”
A Haunting in the Arctic is a taut, dark, harrowing horror novel. It is one part locked-room mystery, one part ghost story, and one part tale of despair. While the ending was a bit chaotic at times, it was a satisfying conclusion to the novel. I think I’ve found yet another author whose backlist I feel compelled to explore.
Recommended
© 2024 Rob H. Bedford
Berkley | Trade Paperback
February 2024 | 352 Pages
https://carolynjesscooke.com/ | Twitter: @CJessCooke
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
