Reviewed by Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite

The Freeze Holds Fast by Andrew Ferns is a fast-moving, exciting adventure set in the wilds of the Yukon, Canada, toward the end of the nineteenth century. Dawson City was a frozen, wild frontier in 1898, at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Tens of thousands of miners and hangers-on flocked to the goldfields when gold was discovered in the Yukon, but Dawson City always had the potential to explode into violence and lawlessness. Trying to hold the line for the Canadian government and ensure the country got its share of the riches on offer were the officers and men of the North-West Mounted Police. Corporal Stephen Grant arrives in Dawson City to take up his latest posting. As Corporal Grant begins an investigation into the death of an unknown miner, his superiors keep telling him their job there is just to “hold the line”, nothing more and nothing less, but Corporal Grant is a determined man, and the deeper he digs, the more he begins to expose. Powerful businessmen, entrepreneurs, and all manner of criminal types seem to be bound together in some sort of giant conspiracy to make themselves incredibly wealthy, and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process.

The Freeze Holds Fast is a fantastic tale of men living on the edge of civilization and surviving daily conditions that would destroy most. Andrew Ferns has created a compelling tale with a fascinating cast of characters who must try to survive in the harsh environment of the Canadian Klondike. Corporal Grant is the epitome of what one imagines a member of the North-West Mounted Police to be: fearless, brave, and with an inherent sense of justice that ensures “he gets his man”. The supporting characters were beautifully drawn; from Grant’s indifferent commander to the colleague who may or may not be involved in the corruption, the various criminals with murder on their minds, through to the shrewd but gentle woman who ran the finest hotel in Dawson City, all contributing masterfully to this narrative. What I particularly enjoyed was the detailed, descriptive prose that places the reader right there in the frozen wasteland. The descriptions of the privations and intense cold suffered by everyone on the Klondike were almost visceral. As a reader, I could feel the cold, the hunger, and the hopelessness of the great percentage of miners who did not find their promised land and future in the goldfields. Of course, for a town built almost entirely of wood, with most buildings being ramshackle, fire is always an ever-present threat, and the irony of the lack of water in that frozen wasteland was not lost. The section dealing with the fire was utterly compelling reading and was beautifully written. One could feel the blistering heat and smoke contrasting with the frozen surroundings. I thoroughly enjoyed this read and highly recommend it.