"Man on Ice"

Humphrey Hawksley is a British journalist and thriller writer whose books focus on the world’s trouble spots and the characters caught up within them. His most recent, Man on Ice, set on the US-Russian border exposes the vulnerability of a tiny Alaskan village barely two miles across the winter sea ice from a Russian military island. This is where the sovereignty of America and Russia meet face-to-face. As most of us know, hostility between the two in real life has reached dangerous levels. Trouble flares up on the eve of a presidential inauguration when foreign powers often view the US as being weaker and in flux.

Hawksley applied the Page 69 Test to Man on Ice and reported the following:

By chance Page 69 of Man on Ice is a pivotal scene. The protagonist Rake Ozenna, a soldier skilled at working with ice and snow, is hiding out from Russian troops who have moved onto the tiny Alaskan island of Little Diomede. He awaits orders from Washington. In the White House, they are working out what possible motive Russia could have for occupying the island.

“They’re doing it now because they think they can,” suggested Prusak (White House Chief-of-Staff). “They took Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and Europe did nothing. They’re outpacing us many times over with bases and ports in the Arctic.”

Then, down the page to Ozenna:

“Captain, how best can we use you?”

“I need to cross to Big Diomede and cut off the snake’s head.”

The snake goes all the way to the Kremlin, thought Stephanie (British ambassador to Washington).

“What can you achieve there?”

“I can tell you who is where and how to hit them.”

The chapter ends with Rake Ozenna instructions to cross treacherous frozen sea water unseen and get to the Russian military base on the other side.

Visit Humphrey Hawksley's website.

My Book, The Movie: Man on Ice.

Writers Read: Humphrey Hawksley.

--Marshal Zeringue