DARKNESS ON THE ICE (1993), by Lois Tilton, takes place in 1944 at a German weather observation station in Greenland. I enjoyed it because of the World War II background and especially the plot device of a vampire's taking full advantage of the months-long Arctic night. While that trope has shown up in subsequent books and movies, as far as I know this horror novel by Tilton was the first to introduce it.
To the surprise and dismay of Dietrich, captain of the Greenland squad, an SS officer named Wolff appears with orders to take charge of security for the operation. Wolff has the assignment of protecting the German outpost against its American counterpart. After some of Dietrich's own personnel die, however, he begins to suspect the truth about Wolff.
The alleged SS officer, of course, is a vampire, persuaded to accept the mission by the prospect of rich hunting and four months of darkness. He struggles to control his thirst for blood in order to avoid exposing his inhuman nature to his comrades. Whenever he runs short of Americans to feed on, though, he drains members of the flight crew that brought the weather team to Greenland, men who have been designated as expendable.
The harsh Arctic setting is vividly portrayed, and the author's afterword gives some indication of the scope and depth of her research. Opening and closing segments set in 1995, in which Dietrich reveals the harrowing experiences he'd never expected anyone to believe, frame the wartime story. The 1944 point of view shifts among Dietrich, the Americans, and Wolff himself, all of them believable characters. Another thing I like about this novel is that the vampire, albeit evil, has complex thought processes and rational motives. He isn't a mindlessly homicidal monster. Also, the Germans aren't caricatures of villainy, either. Even though Dietrich fights on the wrong side, the reader can't help sympathizing with the captain's plight as he watches the "security officer" kill off members of his command.
Earlier, Tilton also wrote VAMPIRE WINTER (1990), a post-apocalyptic novel of a vampire thriving amid the chaos and perpetually shrouded sky of a nuclear winter.
Margaret L. Carter
Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.
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