'On Thin Ice reads more like a Soviet-era spy thriller than travelogue, full of derring-do, panache, but also – importantly – insight. Imagine John Le Carré mixed with James Bond, add a dash of that master of travel writing, Colin Thubron, and you’ll have some idea of what’s in store' Benedict Allen, author of Explorer

In early 2022, Charlie Walker set out to hike 600 miles along Siberia’s frozen rivers. He hoped to cut through the myth of the gulag and the permafrost to understand who its people are and how they reckon with their haunted past, as well as what the future might hold for this remote corner of our world. But on 24 February, Russia invaded Ukraine, with devastating consequences. What had begun as an adventure swiftly descended into a paranoid nightmare, as Walker began to suspect he was being monitored by the Russian authorities. 

On Thin Ice juxtaposes the harsh beauty of a Siberian winter with a thriller-like series of events that exposes the dark heart of Putin's propaganda machine. It is both the extraordinary record of one man’s walk through the most inhospitable place on earth and a powerful insight into a deeply troubled – and troubling – nation.

'This is a rare kind of expedition – a vast solo journey through one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, undertaken just as history shifts beneath his feet. Charlie Walker’s travels capture the deeper uncertainty of moving through a landscape where danger is shaped as much by geopolitics as by ice' Alastair Humphreys, author of Microadventures

'Walker captures the Arctic’s unforgiving nature and exposes the importance of storytelling in places where truth is fragile. An absolutely gripping read' Levison Wood, author of The Great Tree Story

'I was hooked from the very first, chilling words. On Thin Ice reads more like a Soviet-era spy thriller than travelogue, full of derring-do, panache, but also – importantly – insight. Imagine John Le Carré mixed with James Bond, add a dash of that master of travel writing, Colin Thubron, and you’ll have some idea of what’s in store' Benedict Allen, author of Explorer

Charlie Walker is an award-winning explorer, author and international keynote speaker. He has travelled over 60,000 miles by foot, horse, raft, bicycle, ski and dugout canoe, in places as varied as the Tibetan plateau, the Mongolian steppe, the Congolese jungle, the Arctic tundra, the highlands of New Guinea and the Sahara desert. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Scientific Exploration Society Explorer Award winner, and the author of Through Sand & Snow and On Roads That Echo.