Matt Whyman's Icecore

The subtitle "A Carl Hobbes Thriller" was instructive in two ways: it told me what this was supposed to be, and hinted at a sequel.

Carl has managed to hack into the Fort Know security system and opened the doors. That was all he intended to do, for the challenge of it, but once he has, $10 million in bullion gets stolen and makes its way into the hand of terrorists. Because of this, he is pulled in and, because he is not quite 18, given the option to be debriefed at a remote location in lieu of being charged when he is older. This is how he ends up, after a harrowing plane ride, at a fish cannery/prison where the only chance of escape would mean freezing to death. Other criminals with ties to Carl's endeavor are there as well, and they are not as nice as he is.

At first, I wasn't sure how to categorize this. Like Strasser's Boot Camp, a lot of the story is the abuse that Carl and the other prisoners suffer. The spy novel fans will like the details of how Carl hacked into Fort Knox, but the real fan base here is the readers who like survival fiction. It then occurred to me that while girls like books about child abuse, boys like books about survival, and they are really the same thing. This will be very popular.

This made me think about an online reading map I saw, where one could enter the name of an author and a map would come up with other similar authors. Can't for the life of me remember what the address or name was.

Three more that didn't quite do it for me:
Gratz, Something Rotten. Tried a little too hard to tie a mystery in with Hamlet, also quirky Southern setting.

Bruchac. March Towards the Thunder. Too little Civil War, too much Native American daily life. Bruchac is a hard sell here, with the exception of Code Talker.

Rabb. Cures for Heartbreak. F-bomb early on, and rather disjointed.