Lorne Lorch is an ice cleaner: each night he snakes through the ducts of an office tower peeling “ice rats”—bioluminescent blooms that cause their surroundings to freeze—one of the dirtiest, most unpleasant jobs imaginable. And thanks to a bet between influencers, a sociology student’s essay going viral, and an ice-cleaning-focused comic book becoming an underground hit, Lorne finds himself something of a celebrity, and before long newspapers are printing daily statistics of his rat takes. Fans tailgate behind his building. He faces daily media scrums. A young upstart nips at his heels. And as the pressure mounts on Lorne to maintain his supremacy in the field, living under the spotlight becomes increasingly oppressive. At the Regatta, a Super Bowl-like cleaning championship event, Lorne makes a final dash for immortality—and ends up destroying the city’s greatest structure and causing a riot in the streets in the process. Hilarious and heartfelt, The Man Who Hunted Ice tells the story of a man destined for greatness in the dreariest of places.

Born in northern Ontario, Trevor Mahon now calls Ottawa home. Having spent his childhood in a half-dozen Ontario towns, which taught him how to avoid wearing out his welcome, he lives with his wife and son in the suburbs and can often be found indoors or outdoors, but almost never in the ducts of an office tower. The Man Who Hunted Ice, his first novel, distills his fascination with the absurdity of celebrity.

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