Hidden River: A Novel

The River by Adrian McKinty 5 starsI think I was technically reading three of McKinty's books at the same time. I had ordered The Sun is God. I had been on a waiting list for Orange Rhymes with Everything for weeks, and The River, I actually had as a free audio book (loved it from the start and immediately had to buy a used print edition - the only way it can be purchased as it is out of print). Everything showed up at once.This was one of his early books and I have to say, overall I really liked it. There were a couple of scenes that literally had me breathing fast, hearth thumping, riveted to the words.Some people don't like it when an author meanders, in this book I'm thinking specifically about the poppies being picked, the history of Bayer and heroin, and the way he thinks about it. It's meaningful, though it drifts somewhat from the plot. At least that may be how some see it.It wasn't a pretty story. Our guy isn't an easy one to care for. He is well past flawed, but I could understand why he made some of the choices he did. The ending pulled together perfectly I thought too. Really a very good book.

I normally love this author's work and find his books riveting reading but this one didn't quite hit the mark for me. I couldn't "gel" with the main character Alex Lawson, primarily because I didn't like him as a character This was a bit too cliche laden and there were some slow moving parts to the story. I could see who the "bad guy" was going to be well before the final denouement. I know it is an earlier work by a very talented author but I couldn't help but feel a bit underwhelmed by it. The darkness and grittiness is there in parts and hence my middle of the road rating.

I bought several books by Adrian McKinty after reading a couple of his books that I really enjoyed and again the Book and Author are great, I would rate them as -5- Stars, but the binding is lousy, very cheaply manufactured!Shortly after starting the books pages started coming loose from the binding and by the time I had completed book most pages were no longer attached! Numerous pages completely adrift just unbelievably cheaply made.. I believe this is totally unacceptable when making a purchase from Amazon and the publisher of these books "Scribner" should be removed from Amazon's vendor list.It really detracts form being able to enjoy reading a book when the pages are falling out, besides I like to save my books, pass them on to other readers and these books are so lousy they need to be tossed - very disappointing.

While hardly a household name even around noir crime circles, the talented Adrian McKinty is best known for his "Dead" series, a trilogy of the Irish brutality and passion of Belfast bad boy Michael Forsythe. "Hidden River" stands on its own - another beautifully bleak tale of a young man from Northern Ireland who follows disaster and destiny to America. This time around, substitute tragic hero Forsythe with Alexander Lawson, an ex-cop and heroin junkie, and set the American part of the story in Denver. Lawson's high school sweetheart Victoria, an Irish-Indian beauty immigrated to Denver to work in a fast-rising conservative environmental fund, has been murdered, supposedly the result of a botched burglary gone catastrophically wrong. When the girl's father asks Alex for help, he is happy to oblige, escaping to the USA just a step ahead of a vengeful Belfast police force out to silence him before he can testify against them in a high profile corruption case.With his part time cop buddy John Campbell tagging along, Alex discovers that Victoria's former employer, The Campaign for the American Wilderness, may have motives beyond saving ancient growth forests, as it becomes increasingly clear that Victoria stumbled across something its millionaire Mulholland brother founders didn't want her to find. Alex and John fumble through the investigation, and soon find themselves over their heads and running from US lawmen as well. Meanwhile Amber, the ice queen blonde, impossibly beautiful wife of Charles Mulholland, has an apparent agenda of her own as a seemingly straightforward murder mystery spirals toward a sinister and sordid tale of political ambition and greed.While there there is little original in the plot lines and premise here, McKinty twists and grinds familiar ground with black wit and a keen eye for cultural nuance. His Denver is "down at the heel, black, grungy, dirty, honest, and a little bit scary" - an apt description for his cast of characters as well. While McKinty's yarn starts and stops and lurches through an uneven pace, by the end you're guaranteed to be glued to a genuinely gripping climax, even though McKinty has pretty much "foreshadowed-out" any mystery surrounding the killer early on. And just when you think that the author has set you up for another melancholy and bitter tale of unfulfilled Irish redemption, a slick an unexpectedly poetic twist puts the perfect head on this neat little pint of the black.Readers of Ken Bruen, John Connolly, Charlie Huston, or Duane Swierczynski should easily find room for McKinty's dark prose on their bookshelves - an accomplished writer who deserves a wider following.

I love everything by Adrian McKinty but this one the least. I think it is earlier than the Dead series, which are my next favourites, and also than Sean Duffy which series is the cream of them all. Get reading Adrian McKinty if you have never yet had the pleasure. He is a great writer and these are much more than just thrillers or whatever 'genre' they fall into.While giving you a good read he conveys things like the feeling of Northern Ireland in the Troubles, how a perfectly nice seeming man turns into a killer, and lots more, including wonderful literary allusions and the answers to you crossword puzzle or that pub quiz you so want to win.Please find time to write some more, especially Sean Duffy.

Haven't yet read a book by Adrian McKinty that I didn't like. A distinctive prose style and interesting, flawed yet likeable main characters keep me coming back for more. Complex without being impenetrable, his books deserve wider acclaim.I can't understand why tv/film aren't queuing up to take books like Hidden River to the screen. With locations like Colorado, the Antrim coast and India, what a visual feast a film adaptation could be - or has my imagination been working overtime?

Adrian McKinty is the best crime/ thriller writer of all, in my view, and this novel is impossible to put down and sizzles with excitement. It moves from Carrickfergus in NIreland to the USA, and Denver, a place I now know not to visit. His hero is almost as charismatic as his glorious detective Sean Duffy. Why the Sean Duffy books have not been turned into film baffles me. They are fantastic and Aidan Turner would be perfect for bringing Sean to the big screen

If I'd say "beautifully written" I wouldn't give much justice to Adrian McKinty and his characters in this book. Still the story is engaging, and I found the writing perfectly fit to the story (although beautiful is not the right word to describe it) especially how Alexander's storytelling would "alter" it by involving his opinions, regrets and hallucinations even.Indeed it is revealed who Victoria's killer is. Much of the story is revealed forehand, chapters before it is actually happening, e.g. John's fate. Yet when reading Alexander's thoughts about that, it only made made want to reach that part in the book to see what happens. Also, these revelations are sometimes misleading, for example the gun in the river, at the start. It's only in the last pages that it becomes a centerpiece of this story and by then I was quite convinced that Alexander decided to live with his regrets - or most likely die with them as I seriously expected that after his little swimming trip, seeing Victoria again... if not from any disease he caught then simply by a golden shot as he's the kind to give up on things you would believe after how he handled everything in his life - his family, his career, Victoria, John etc.So I was somewhat happy for the ending from the murder PoV, and could not believe it from Alexander's PoV.Regardless of the revelations early in the book, and in the description of the book, many of the happenings came as surprise, I could never tell what Amber will do next, and Alexander had the unpredictability of a junkie throughout the book.It is sadly accurate how his relationship with addiction is described from his PoV, through his beliefs and until the end of the book, when he finally tells his story with heroin I didn't understand where his obsession with control came from - that he believed it's all an act as if he was undercover. He has the reluctant attitude and denial of any addict to admit his disease. I was somewhat glad that McKinty spared the lengthy description of his withdrawal symptoms and struggles though. It gave the feeling that it's miraculously true that he indeed was in control unlike any other addict would've been.I was glad that the whole Northern Ireland religious situation and IRA involvement of the time was not covered too deeply. This was only used as a background and allowed the story to develop independently, without any labels.Sorry for the spoilers, I highly recommend the book :)

This story is in some way related to McKinty's most recent book "Rain Dogs" in that the protagonist of "Hidden River", Alexander Lawson, also features in "Rain Dogs", the story of Rain Dogs, howeve, taking place some years earlier than the story of "Hidden River". I liked both books very much because of Adrian McKinty's fabulous skills in depicting characters and evoking scenery and atmosphere. I also like his including historic events in his stories. Adrian McKinty is one of the best crime writers I have come across in many years.