Book Review - The Island - Adrian McKinty
Early on in ‘the island’ by Adrian Kinty, this pulsating, highly enjoyable thriller, the main character is given a few words of warning about ‘the world’s deadliest snakes and spiders’ and a list of movies in which hitchhikers are murdered in the bush by maniacs. ‘It’s an entire genre Heather! It must be based on reality.’ So we can’t say we weren’t warned.
Adrian McKinty
There’s no doubting Australian crime fiction has been popular for a few years, and I’ve read and enjoyed a few, including big hitters such as Jane Harper and Chris Hammer. The stark and distinctive landscape, wide open spaces and oppressive heat provide a great backdrop - it’s perfect for crime fiction. Although Adrian McKinty is originally Irish, he has been living in Melbourne since 2008, so he knows the country and genre well.
I first encountered McKinty a few years ago and read his excellent Detective Sean Duffy series, set in the North of Ireland during the 1980’s, so I knew I was in good hands. It’s a while since I read it but I remember it being fast paced, fairly brutal and graphic and did a scarily good job of recreating the ‘troubles’ of my childhood. So I was keen to see what he do in the book. I knew he was the writer of ‘the chain’, a recent bestseller, but I haven’t read it.
Heather
Heather has married Tom Baxter, a widowed doctor with a young son and a teenage daughter. He’s a bit older than her, but he’s come along at an opportune moment in her life and she does love him. They’re based in Seattle, but when a opportunity arises for them to visit Australia, where Tom is giving a keynote speech at an orthopaedic conference, they take a family trip, visiting Uluru and Sydney before landing in Melbourne.
With the kids not yet adapting to their new ‘mother’, they’re determined to spend as much family time together as they can, and take a drive out of Melbourne for a few hours before Tom’s speech. A chance encounter at the side of the road presents them with the opportunity to take a short ferry journey out to a private island to see some koalas in their natural habitat. It’s here where an accident occurs that puts an end to the family day out. Tom doesn’t get to talk about knees at the orthopaedic conference but they do see Koalas, but perhaps not in the way they intended.
Page turner
As per usual in my book reviews, I’m not going to say anything else as that would spoil the fun - and what fun there is. Completely over the top, at times violent and brutal, but delivered with style in what turns out to be an absolute page turner of the highest standard. Adrian McKinty is very skilled at writing a rip roaring ‘cat and mouse’ thriller that never lets up. Definably equally adept at Australian crime fiction as Irish detective series.
There’s plenty of humour in the there too - I particularly liked the reference to Chekov late on in the book, as it had certainly occurred to me before that. And Heather is a great, spiky character who grew on me as the book progressed, well able for some of the adversaries that she faces.
McKinty is great at ratcheting up the tension as far as he can. He uses as much of the environment as he can - snakes, dingoes, red ants, abandoned buildings, machetes, hidden caves, cliffs, - you name it, McKinty uses it. The storyline never seems to let up and just when you think you have a handle on it, you get hit with something else.
Stephen King
I read a tweet a few days ago from none other that Stephen King, a man who knows a thing or two about writing thrillers, praising ‘The island.’ I read his book ‘on writing’ a few years ago where he talked about the ‘what if’ approach to writing - letting your brain think of what might happened if events had taken a different turn. It seems that this is how the idea came to McKinty a few years ago, whilst on holiday in a different part of Australia where he nearly had an accident, so it’s advice that definitely works.
Summary
I thoroughly enjoyed this - just a tense, relentless story that grips you from when they reach the island. It’s not the usual sort of book that I read but I really enjoyed this story, best enjoyed if you just go with it. Definitely a welcome addition to Australian crime fiction.
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest book review. My thanks to Little, Brown and Company and to Adrian McKinty for the Advanced Reader Copy.
The island by Adrian McKinty
375 pages
First published May 17, 2022 by Little, Brown and co.