Spring Thaw

Set amid the terrible beauty of frozen arctic wastes, this electrifying adventure-fantasy is both timeless and joltingly contemporary. Its narrator, Jason Melman, captain of a seal-hunting vessel, uses an ancient parchment scroll handed down by his Norwegian seafaring father to locate a fabled sealing ground between Labrador and Greenland. There, Jason encounters feisty Mirabelle, the spirit of a village woman who was exiled 30 years ago--along with her poet-boyfriend Macafee--for preaching that the slaughter of innocent creatures is a sin. Is Mirabelle a guardian spirit, a reincarnated entity or an hallucination? It's an open question, but Jason's blustering father, Johann, fell madly in love with her decades earlier. Now Jason, besides coping with a mutinous crew and his need to prove his manhood, must uncover his father's dread secret to fathom the weird phenomena on this ill-fated expedition. Jason's impending marriage is also at stake. Novelist ( The Collaborator ) and screenwriter Stebel has surpassed himself with this stinging tale. Taut, emotionally charged and conveying a strong ecological message, this book is impossible to put down. (Apr.)