The Ice Mask — Richard Woodman

Guy Edwardes, a retired soldier and adventurer, has recently returned from a single-handed yachting voyage to the Arctic.

But when Guy returns from the icy waters of the Svalbard archipelago, he is a very different man to the one that cast off.

He is diminished, spent, and soon after Guy takes his own life.

No one can understand why.

His long-time partner, Karen, is spurred into action, desperately seeking the truth, nursing her own sadness … and hiding her own secrets.

Persuading Nick Allan, a friend and beneficiary of Guy's yacht, to join her, they cast off on their own voyage of discovery, hoping to find out what happened to him ‘up there'.

Trying to piece together clues that seem almost meaningless, what they eventually discover is a man's soul stripped bare.

In the face of Karen's pain Allan attempts to make sense of Guy's conduct, and before they know it their plight begins to mirror their late friend's…

Following Karen and Nick as they try to recreate Guy's ‘heroic' voyage to Svalbard, ‘The Ice Mask' is a powerful novel of friendship and human endeavour in the face of nature's adversity.

Praise for Richard Woodman:

“Will definitely win readers and whet appetites for the sequels” Booklist

Captain Richard Martin Woodman LVO is an English novelist and naval historian who retired in 1997 from a 37 year nautical career, mainly working for Trinity House, to write full-time. His main work is 14 volumes about the career of Nathaniel Drinkwater, and shorter series about James Dunbar and William Kite, but he also written a range of factual books about 18th century and WW2 history.