Name of the author who wrote "Killer"

Question

I read this book years ago and am unable to find a copy as I can't remember the author's name. It's about a navy trained killer whale and a plane crash in the arctic.

Answer 1

Killer by Peter Tonkin; it's got a weaponized orca and an arctic plane crash and the right title. Here is part of a long review from Micro-Brewed Reviews (emphasis added):

Okay, Boils and Ghouls, while the premise of an Orca bred to enormous size, trained and weaponized by the U.S. Navy to destabilize Vietnamese ports that escapes from its training facility when betrayed by its masters, who winds up terrorizing a group of arctic plankton researchers stranded on a floating piece of ice sounds too good to be true, it does exist. However, after a smashing opening prologue introducing us to our Rambo-Whale, the next 100 pages or so is a bit of a slog of character embellishing of those it will, hopefully, eventually eat. At least that's why I bought the book.

Killer was first published in 1978 and perhaps packs more of a punch today as the psychological trauma and emotional damage of captive Orcas has come to light and has forced SeaWorld to suspend the practice of capturing and training them for entertainment purposes. In the novel, our giant Orca has gone through similar but more far more lethal conditioning, and so, wounded, and suffering from a massive amount of PTSD, our rogue antagonist has an ingrained, insatiable blood-lust to kill all hu-mans it swims across. Meanwhile, an arctic scientific expedition winds up on an ice floe after their plane crashes and breaks off a chunk of the ice pack, sending them drifting off into the open sea, toward Russia. Thus, six survivors, who managed to salvage all their gear and rations before the plane blew up, set up camp and wait out a rescue, blissfully unaware of what is lurking just below the surface.

There is another review at MPorcius Fiction Log.