Hidden River by
Adrian McKinty
pbk out February 05
(Serpent's Tail)
at £9.99
I was not the greatest fan of Dead I Well May Be, Mr. McKinty's first novel
(now reissued in paperback). Sure I loved the impeccable, I was there, pre-
Guiliani gangland New York, the male cameraderie, the hard-bitten humour
between the violence, along with the sense of a major new voice in the
making. I was not so fond of his habit of slipping in the occasional hint of later
plot developments in place of genuine escalations in tension. And whilst his
clear literary ambitions are something I would normally applaud, here I felt
they would occasionally lead him to wander, notably a digression into Mexico
that caused the novel to sag badly in the middle.
This is better. Like the previous book, it's a spiritual journey, one made by a
heroin-addicted ex-cop asked to investigate unofficially the death in Denver,
Colorado, of his old high school sweetheart, leading from his Irish homeland to
America and finally to yet another continent and an earthly substitute for
the river of the title. It's a perfect ending, achieving several purposes in one,
and which instantly causes a re-evaluation of the novel.
But that final continent is India, source of our hero's addiction, his young
love, and the literary references to the Baghavad Gita which lend overblown
intent to the novel. Nor is the relatively unknown dark side of Denver an
adequate substitute for New York of the 90s. And if McKinty does aspire
to be, as the blurb suggests, the new Lehane or Connelly (which I doubt), he
will, again, have to tighten up his plotting in the central part of the book.
There is a considerable writer here. If he can reign in those literary
aspirations (just a little), and fix those structural problems, number three will
be a cracker.
Hidden River by
Adrian McKinty
