Fifty Grand: A Novel of Suspense

Taking its title from a Hemingway short story, Adrian McKinty's FIFTY GRAND opens in Cuba before moving on, via Mexico, to Colorado, as a Cuban cop, Hernandez, goes illegally undercover in the US to investigate her father's death. The Hemingway homage is a brave one, inviting ridicule and accusations of hubris, but McKinty has long been purveying a blend of muscular lyricism in which collide the brutalities of the crime novel and a knowing, self-effacing literary style. His sixth novel for adults (he also writes the `Lighthouse' series for children), FIFTY GRAND offers a challenging conceit, which is to put the tough, spare rhythms associated with classic hard-boiled novels (think Hemingway himself, James Ellroy, James Cain) into the mind of a first-person female protagonist. The result is an incendiary, adrenalin-fuelled thriller, but one that also functions as a blackly hilarious social satire of the skewed values of pre-Obama America, as Hernandez, in the role of exploited illegal immigrant, infiltrates the glitzy world of Colorado's ski-resort set, cleaning up the mess left behind by Hollywood`s jet-set. Most successful of all, however, is McKinty's ability to slip inside Hernandez's skin. The undercover Hernandez is thrown back on her own resources as she investigates her father's death and brings those responsible to a very particular kind of justice, without recourse to conventional resources. As vulnerable as she is tough, as scared as she is determined, as fragile as she is lethal, she makes for a highly unusual, creepily authentic and utterly compelling anti-heroine.

Like the book, I'll keep this short and sweet. "Fifty Grand" is an excellent novel. Well paced, and meticulously detailed, it grabbed me from the opening chapter. McKinty presents us with a well rounded, deeply emotional protagonist, and a series of equally fleshed out villains that create a unique twist on the age-old revenge tale. Without giving too much away McKinty manages to paint the picture of a life through memories in vivid fashion without ever detracting from the main plot. In fact, the use of flashbacks and flashforwards is a trait which would be a gimmick for most other authors, but it always seems to work with McKinty. Highly recommended if you like your thrillers with a dash of the literary or you know, enjoy character development.

It remains something of a mystery to me why McKinty isn't better known here. True, he hails from Northern Ireland, but all the books I've read of his have big American themes, particularly about having outsider status in the world's most powerful country. He worked it from the Irish angle in his stunning Michael Forsythe trilogy, and now he comes at it again from a country with more troubled relations to our own--Cuba. This book should be hitting with a bang right now as everyone who reads the newspapers re-evaluates our relation to Cuba, but in fact the mainstream media seems not to have picked up on its up to the minute relevance. Others have gone into the plot structure. I am impressed with the pared down prose, which is perfect for a novel of vengeance, with its single-minded, knifepoint focus. Knowing from his other books that McKinty writes it this way by choice rather than necessity, I found that the more deadpan tone made it all the more breathtaking in the climactic moments when his natural gift for lyricism is finally allowed to break through. I am probably making this more talky than it needs to be, though. You don't have to care one whit about the rich and the poor, the powerful and the invisible to enjoy this book. Pick it up and start right in. You are in for a thrilling ride.

On an icy isolated Colorado mountain road, an illegal immigrant is killed in a hit and run. Law enforcement gives the case nothing as the victim has no rights and was just a rodent catcher; besides which someone in the affluent town of Fairview probably killed the man who should never have been there in the first place, and no cop is going after the wealthy. Six months later the case is tundra cold when a woman makes the dangerous trek across the border. She barely survives, but manages to reach Fairview where she obtains work as a maid. The woman is an illegal immigrant but not from Mexico and is not looking for work in the States. Though an extremely dangerous trek to get to her destination, Havana Police Detective Mercado snuck out of Cuba and through Mexico into the States obsessed with finding out who killed her father; an intellectual exile whom she had not seen in fourteen years, in a hit and run near Fairview six months ago in which the driver left him to die. This is an exhilarating thriller from the onset when the illegal rat catcher is allowed to die and six months later when an undercover investigation by another illegal turns into a cat and mouse encounter. The story line is fast-paced with a neat final twist as Adrian McKinty provides readers with an entertaining tale driven by a strong cast especially the avenging Cuban. Harriet Klausner

I'd been a fan of McKinty's work since I first read DEAD I WELL MAY BE (2003). His "Dead Trilogy," starring anti-hero Michael Forsythe was, in my view, the best character-driven series of the decade. So I was a bit disappointed to learn that his latest would be a standalone. I'm happy to report that my concerns were completely unfounded. This book is his best to date. I won't rehash the plot here (you can read about it above), but I will say that this book has some of the most developed, believable, and identifiable characters that you'll see in this genre. Mercado is one of the most well drawn female protagonists I've encountered, period. The ancillary characters (in particular Mercado's boss and her young travel companion) are perfectly rendered and add to the storyline, rather than distract from it. In a book of this sort, the characters are typically the key - here, they're pitch perfect. The other notable character in this book is Cuba itself. Mercado's Cuban heritage, and her ties to her homeland (and its attendant paranoia, poverty, and crime) colors everything in the story and lends itself both to her actions and her thoughts throughout her journey. The flashbacks peppered throughout the book (which take place in Cuba prior to Mercado's departure for the US) provide contrast between the Cuban mentality and geography and that of the US. It's clear that McKinty spent significant time in Cuba while writing FIFTY GRAND - the Cuban backdrop is just that well done. In all, this should be the book that propels McKinty beyond his current core fanbase and takes him mainstream. Fans of his prior books will love it, and for those new to McKinty, it provides a perfect place to start. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.