Arctic Rising

Working from actual U.S. Navy reports, bestseller Buckell (Halo: The Cole Protocol) produces an intimate techno-thriller about an ecological showdown in an ice-free Arctic. Anika Duncan, a U.N. airship pilot, records a radiation signal and is thrust into the hunt for a stolen nuclear weapon. Suspecting a traitor within her own agency, she turns to her contacts inside the Arctic underworld to discover who is introducing tiny airborne mirrors into the polar atmosphere. Weaving among mercenaries, freelance moviemakers, elite military, and megalomaniacal environmentalists, Anika is forced to decide in a hands-on fashion about the ethics of torture and the moral philosophy of geo-engineering. The story moves swiftly and Anika’s inner conflicts are keenly drawn, even as Buckell raises the stakes unbelievably high. Eyebrows may also be raised unbelievably high at the libertarian free-trade ice island at the North Pole, but as a character points out, it does give a nice new meaning for “breakaway republics.” Agent: JABberwocky Literary Agency. (Feb.)