THE ISLAND (2022)
By Adrian McKinty
Little, Brown & Company, 372 pages.
★★★★
It’s not exactly the scoop of the year to observe that there’s not much reality in TV “reality” shows such as “Survivor.” They are scripted to exaggerate danger and are really intended to induce grossed-out reactions in viewers. “Contestants” are seldom imperiled, though they might get dirty and uncomfortable, perhaps even suffer a scrape or two. In short, “Survivor” is a game show disguised as humans versus nature.
One of the things that makes The Island an exciting thriller is that its characters are placed in extreme danger and death is a palpable possibility. It begins innocently enough. Tom Baxter is a successful and mildly arrogant surgeon attending a conference in Melbourne Australia. He is accompanied by his younger second wife Heather and his two kids, 12-year-old Owen and 14-year-old Olivia. Heather isn’t much more than a kid herself; she’s a 24-year-old Millennial, a trophy wife too young to be a stepmom and with little incentive to learn. Moreover, the kids are still emotionally hollowed out from the horrible Multiple Sclerosis death of their birth mother.
The very presence of Heather and the kids is Tom’s attempt to better acclimate Heather into the family and fast forward the healing process for Owen and Olivia. Maybe an outing to see koalas can brighten moods. He gets a tip, rents a flash car, and makes his way to a small ferry dock that will take the Baxters to Dutch Island. It’s a three-by-five mile hunk of land a mile and a half out to sea. Ivan, the ferryman, gives them a limited amount of time to look around, just 45 minutes, a privilege for which Tom shells out big money ($600 Australian, over $400 US). Ivan bluntly warns the Baxters and a Dutch family traveling to the island to steer clear of the O’Neill clan, Dutch Island’s only family.
You pretty much know that something will go terribly wrong and it does. Tom drives too fast, thinks he hears a thump, and finds that he has run over a young girl. Panic City! He moves the body off the road and hides it in the grass, his plan being to get off the island before her corpse is found. Like that will happen! This sets up a clash with the O’Neills, who are lorded over Deliverance-style by Ma, who is stern and vicious. This is “Survivor” without any built-in safety nets. Will anyone get off the island alive? Will it help to split up until the ferry comes? Heather and the kids head one way, Tom a different direction, and Dutch family, which has no connection to the Baxters, hopes to reason with the O’Neills, one of whose members seems open to resolving problems without violence. That’s not Ma’s perspective; she’s out for blood and doesn’t care whose it is. Can she be swayed by a more reasonable family member? Can Heather trust Rory, an old man living on the site of a prison that shut down in the 1980s but isn’t related to the O’Neills? Which side is Ivan the ferryman on?
Did I mention that there is no food or known water source on Dutch Island? Or that there is no cell phone service, Wi-fi, or Internet? Insofar as those fleeing O’Neill wrath are concerned, there is little evidence that the island has been seriously inhabited since aborigines drew on the walls of a hidden cave.
You could label this novel by Adrian McKinty “Heather grows up.” Her father was in the military, and she tries to channel him to stay alive. This is indeed a thrilling novel. It’s not a perfect one; Owen and Olivia are sometimes unconvincingly savvy and precocious. I was also not convinced by an extremely unlikely detail in the resolution. The Island is however, a diverting story that’s much more convincing than “Survivor.” Put this one on your summer reading list.
Rob Weir
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