Killer by Peter Tonkin
A thrilling horror-action-adventure hybrid of a novel
A group of Arctic scientists survive a plane crash only to find themselves stranded on a remote ice floe and the target of a pack of killer whales.
Killer is an engrossing, entertaining, and easy read that delivers precisely what you want and expect.
The book is efficient in its plot: it sets up the situation described above, then proceeds to continually rachet up the tension and raise the stakes… Deaths occur, the ice floe shrinks, survival seems increasingly impossible.
It is a horrific survival story.
Yet, Killer is no mere paperback potboiler. Though the plot itself is ruthlessly economical, the characters involved are detailed and complex:
Kate is an exceptional botanist who has been lured to the Arctic to work with her estranged father, Doctor Warren, (also a remarkable scientist) who is conducting experiments in the far north.
Simon Quick is Warren’s camp director. Colin Ross is an expert cold-weather man — and Simon’s nemesis due to a tragic expedition that took place years earlier. Already at odds with each other, the two men also find themselves competing for Kate’s affections, despite their increasingly precarious safety.
Job is the resident Inuit who serves as Ross’ righthand man, has history with both Ross and Quick, and waxes philosophical about both ancient indigenous Gods and the Christian faith.
Rounding out the cast of humans is co-pilot Hiram Preston. (The actual pilot was killed in the crash).
It’s a motley crew, but it makes perfect sense why each of them are there, and they’re also perfectly cast to ensure there is constant conflict. Although they spend most of their time forced to work together to avoid being eaten by a murderous whale, they’re more than happy to fight amongst themselves whenever opportunity arises.
As the books skips and dances between various’ character’s perspectives — often paragraph to paragraph — it gives us a clear and constant sense of who everyone is and where their heads are at. The stylistic choice also helps make the book seem more cinematic as we’re not “trapped” in a single character’s perspective throughout.
But let’s talk about the whale. Perhaps unnecessarily, the book opens with a prologue detailing the lead killer whale’s backstory: he was captured as a youth and trained by the US Navy as a form of military weapon intended to kill enemy divers in Vietnam — until he escaped.
Tokin’s stated goal with Killer was to outdo Jaws. He decided the only way to accomplish that was to go bigger (orcas are roughly 12 feet longer and more than twice the weight of the largest great white sharks) and more ruthless — and this specific killer whale hates humans since they kidnapped, tortured, and held him captive and he has already developed a taste for human blood.
Whereas Bruce was simply a primal killing machine operating on fatal instinct, this killer whale is intelligent and unrelenting in its desire to devour these stranded humans. He just does not give up.
And so, our plucky heroes are subjected an endless barrage of attacks from this psycho cetacean. Along the way, their already tenuous ice floe is smashed and shattered, invaded by a herd of panicked walruses, and drowned by collapsing icebergs.
You like gore? Killer has arms ripped off, tusks stabbed through torsos, people bitten in half and swallowed whole!
Killer is set piece followed by set piece, but also manages to cram in a lot of great stuff including complex and nuanced interpersonal relationships, necessary backstories, and entire chapters focused on the featured animals that not only captures these creatures’ natural beauty but also articulates their agency as intentional assassins.
It is a thrilling horror-action-adventure hybrid of a novel.