Book #4 The Quality of Silence

The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SPOILER ALERT

On 24th November Yasmin and her deaf daughter Ruby arrive in Alaska. Within hours they are driving alone across a frozen wilderness. Where nothing grows. Where no one lives. Where tears freeze. And night will last for another fifty-four days. ...They're searching for Ruby's father, missing in the arctic wilderness. And Ruby, deaf since birth, must brave the darkness where sight cannot guide her. She won't abandon her father. But winter has tightened its grip, and there is somebody out there who wants to stop them. Somebody tracking them through the dark...

I enjoyed the book although I found the plot somewhat preposterous. An astrophysicist, Yasmin - the mother - jumps into the cab of a 40 ton tractor/trailer arctic truck - and drives across the Arctic tundra. Apart from the fact that she is driving on ice these units can have up to ten gears - but she manages. Hmmmm.

Overall though - it is a chilling read, in more ways than one. And the story campaigns against hydraulic fracturing in the Alaskan Arctic, with concerns about the impact of fracking in more fragile northern environments. Good enough for me....

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