FIRST DESCENT

In Pace’s novel, a geologist’s son discovers his father’s mysterious legacy may hold the key to a legendary Arctic cave—and an origin story for a very familiar holiday figure.

Nick Landowski works as a Nevada mine foreman, still haunted by his adoptive father Virgil’s disappearance 18 years ago during a doomed Arctic expedition while searching for a mythical diamond cave. When a workplace accident splits open a geode that Virgil left him, Nick discovers a hidden safe-deposit box key. Accompanied by best friend, Bodie Williams, Nick’s cross-country quest to unlock his father’s secrets becomes complicated when the bank requires him to answer an impossible security question to open the box: “What is the third ingredient in the secret formula for Coca Cola?” The real adventure begins much later when Nick finds himself transported from a cave to 11th-century Scotland and travels to Greenland; he encounters a village of little people, Norse raiders, an evil sorcerer named Zebula, and the woman he’s falling for—Anna Duncan, his former boss’s niece, who’s also been mysteriously pulled back in time. Pace also creates a Santa Claus origin story that eschews “singing elves-dancing candy cane” territory for something grittier and more ambitious. The modern-day Nevada mining setting establishes Nick as a capable protagonist before the narrative pivots into time-hopping territory featuring magical amulets and diamond-studded caves. The contrived Coca-Cola subplot saps the urgency when the story requires Nick to unlock his dad’s secrets. Although Pace maintains momentum with energetic action sequences, the Norse captivity section drags and convenient coincidences strain credibility. Nick and Anna develop genuine chemistry despite their improbable circumstances, although dialogue wavers between medieval affectation and contemporary quips. Supporting characters, such as the loyal Bodie, add warmth, but villain Zebula tends toward the cartoonish. The sprawling ambition of this novel’s mythology will appeal to readers willing to embrace the genre-hopping chaos. However, the execution doesn’t quite live up to the inventive premise.

An imaginative, if uneven, blend of contemporary thriller and medieval fantasy.