The Island by Adrian McKinty

Published by Little, Brown and Company on May 17, 2022

The Island is an uncomplicated mix of thriller and horror elements. A widower named Tom has traveled to Australia for a medical conference. He’s taken his new wife and his two kids. The kids don’t like their stepmom, who is half their dad’s age, but they’re more upset that they haven’t seen any cool animals. Tom spends a few hundred bucks to buy a few hours of time on a private island, ignoring obvious warnings that invading the island’s privacy will be a bad idea. After another couple joins the tour, a ferry brings the six people and their two cars to Dutch Island.

Adrian McKinty signals that Dr. Tom is a disagreeable character when Tom complains that the car rental company gave him a lesser Porsche SUV than the one he reserved. McKinty signals that the reader should have sympathy for Tom’s wife, Heather, when she struggles to do her best in her unfamiliar parental role. Those signals alert the reader to the likelihood that things will not go well for Tom but that Heather will show her mettle. Just to make sure the reader doesn’t dwell on Tom’s unpleasant encounter with the island's residents, McKinty provides more tidbits about Tom’s past to suggest that that his eventual fate is only the product of karma.

Tom does something stupid that gets Tom and his family in trouble with the island’s inhabitants, a family of misfits named O’Neill, led by a woman they call Ma. The O’Neill family decides that vengeance requires them to kill Tom’s family, apart from the 14-year-old girl who will become a replacement wife for one of the O’Neills. For good measure, the O’Neill family tortures the tag-along couple so that the reader will have no doubt that the O’Neills are evil. This sets an action story in motion, as Heather and the kids use a combination of wits and luck to turn themselves from prey to hunter.

The story makes interesting use of Australia’s history of oppressing Aboriginal people. The plot is otherwise predictable, but the story moves quickly and generates the excitement that McKinty intended. The traditional season of beach reads is approaching. The Island falls neatly into that category — entertaining but no great loss if the reader leaves it buried in the sand.

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