Book review: Icebreaker - A Voyage Far North, by Horatio Clare

Great stories can sometimes be found in the unlikeliest places. This book came about when the author and journalist Horatio Clare was contacted by an old schoolfriend, Pekka Isosomppi, who was working in the press office at the Finnish Embassy in London. Isosomppi had been charged with raising the country’s profile in 2017, its centenary year. “I just got an idea that might interest you, given your fascination with ships” he wrote – a reference to Down to the Sea in Ships, Clare’s 2014 account of two voyages aboard container vessels. “Would you like to travel on a government icebreaker? I think if you do the journey, something will come of it.”