The Sun is God - Softcover

Adrian McKinty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846689848 ISBN 13: 9781846689840

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2015

Synopsis

Based on true events, The Sun is God is dark, outrageous and hugely entertaining -- historical crime fiction at its very best. It is 1906 and Will Prior is in self-imposed exile on a remote South Pacific island, working a small, and failing, plantation. He should never have told anyone about his previous existence as a military foot policeman in the Boer War, but a man needs friends, even if they are as stuffy and, well, German, as Hauptmann Kessler, the local government representative.

So it is that Kessler approaches Will one hot afternoon, with a request for his help with a problem on a neighbouring island, inhabited by a reclusive, cultish group of European 'cocovores', who believe that sun worship and eating only coconuts will bring them eternal life. Unfortunately, one of their number has died in suspicious circumstances, and Kessler has been tasked with uncovering the real reason for his demise. So along with a 'lady traveller', Bessie Pullen-Burry, who is foisted on them by the archipelago's eccentric owner, they travel to the island of Kabakon, to find out what is really going on.

So it is that Kessler approaches Will one hot afternoon, with a request for his help with a problem on a neighbouring island, inhabited by a reclusive, cultish group of European 'cocovores', who believe that sun worship and eating only coconuts will bring them eternal life. Unfortunately, one of their number has died in suspicious circumstances, and Kessler has been tasked with uncovering the real reason for his demise. So along with a 'lady traveller', Bessie Pullen-Burry, who is foisted on them by the archipelago's eccentric owner, they travel to the island of Kabakon, to find out what is really going on.

'McKinty is one of Britain's great contemporary crime writers and the Sean Duffy books are his masterpiece.'
IAN RANKIN

About this title

Review:

An exciting new voice (Ian Rankin)

Based on an improbable but true story, the novel offers a fascinating twist on the traditional "locked room" mystery, as only the island's miserable few inhabitants can be considered suspects in the alleged murder. Prior, as reluctant a sleuth as has ever shuffled into the genre, makes for a blackly humorous guide to a palm-fringed, sun-drenched idyll that is both heaven and hell. McKinty's 15th novel (if you include his young-adult titles) is an ambitious offering that incorporates a subplot exploring pre-first World War colonial tensions between Britain and Germany. But it's the investigation of the central mystery, with its undertones of Paradise Lost, that proves most entertaining. (Declan Burke Irish Times 2014-06-21)

A writer of substance (Guardian)

McKinty gets better and better (The Times)

A seriously brilliant novelist (Australian)

Adrian McKinty is one of the great storytellers writing crime fiction today. (Don Winslow)

When it comes to Northern Irish crime fiction, Adrian McKinty forged the path the rest of us follow. (Stuart Neville)

Book Description:

Based on true events, The Sun is God is dark, outrageous and hugely entertaining -- historical crime fiction at its very best.

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1846689848
• ISBN 13: 9781846689840
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288