The first half of this book was the "adventure" part, and interesting reading.  Then the book digressed into details about how Steffanson, the families of the deceased men, and the press and other involved parties handled the aftermath of the incident.  This was not so interesting to me, but may be to others who are more interested in the potential politics of the whole affair.

The 3 men who disappeared headed for Siberia over the ice when the relief ship didn't (couldn't) make it to the island to resupply them.  As bad luck would have it, a furious storm came up just a day after their departure, likely causing them to perish from the elements or becoming lost and ending up falling through bad ice.

One man was left in camp with Ada, he had a case of scurvy which got worse and ended up killing him the second spring.  Ada managed to learn to hunt with a gun and trap to feed herself and was lucky enough not to become a polar bear's dinner.  The second summer a ship did make it to the island and brought her back to safety.

A lot of the book revolves around Steffanson who was a famous explorer, but his method seems to have been to organize expeditions and send others out to do the actual "exploring" ahead of him.  This was at least the second of his expeditions which ended up badly for the majority of the participants while Steffanson was at home in the USA and UK doing a lecture circuit expounding the wonderful "friendly Arctic".   :-/