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3.0 

The Sun Is God

By Adrian McKinty
The Sun Is God by Adrian McKinty digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Colonial New Guinea, 1906. A small group of mostly German nudists live an extreme back-to-nature existence on the remote island of Kabakon. Eating only coconuts and bananas, they purport to worship the sun. One of their members, Max Lutzow, has recently died, allegedly from malaria. But an autopsy on his body in the nearby capital of Herbertshöhe raises suspicions about foul play.

Retired British military police officer Will Prior is recruited to investigate the circumstances of Lutzow's death. At first, the eccentric group seems friendly and willing to cooperate with the investigation. They all insist that Lutzow died of malaria. Despite lack of evidence for a murder, Prior is convinced the group is hiding something.

Things come to a head during a late-night feast supposedly given as a send-off for the visitors before they return to Herbertshöhe. Prior fears the intent of the "celebration" is not to fete the visitors—but to make them the latest murder victims.

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4 Reviews

3.0
“The Sun Is God by Adrian McKinty is small historical mystery novel, centered around a secluded cult of sun worshipers in Colonial New Guinea in the early 1900s. A group of nudists, mostly Germans, who live mainly on a diet of coconuts and bananas on the remote island of Kabakon, spend their existence worshiping the sun. Their belief that this extreme lifestyle will somehow grant them immortality and that the outside world can only contaminate their goals. But when the death of one of their members appears to have happened under suspicious circumstances, they find their quiet and hidden lives about to be revealed. Will Prior is a retired military officer in the British Army who has exiled himself to these remote islands when he is recruited by the German government to investigate the death. The islanders claim the death was caused by malaria but an autopsy revealed something far more dire. The corpse was a victim of drowning. Prior is sent to the island to uncover the truth, but days pass, he begins to suspect that the islanders are not at all what they appear and he may soon become the next victim. I am a huge fan of Adrian McKinty's Sean Duffy novels of Ireland the times of the Troubles. If you want gritty well written crime novels centered in Ireland at the time when the civil war was raging, then the Sean Duffy novels are for you. The Sun Is God is a departure from these books and is a stand alone historical mystery that unfortunately lacks the narrative that drives McKinty's other books. Will Prior is a good character and the back story of his time in battle and his subsequent discharge and trouble dealing with what must be post traumatic stress and alcoholism is well structured. Prior would be a good character to create a series around. My issue is that The Sun Is God loses focus when Prior and his group land on the island among the cult. Its as if their addiction to drugs and lack of nutrition creates a daze that the narrative falls into. So that it is difficult to follow. Like trying to make sense from a drunk storyteller. There is a lot of interesting history here, in a forgotten place and time. It might have been better served with a larger novel and deeper detailed. A small novel like this shouldn't lose its way and McKinty is a far better writer than what this book shows.”

About Adrian McKinty

Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He studied philosophy at Oxford University before moving to Australia and to New York. He is the author of more than a dozen crime novels, including the award-winning standalone thriller The Chain, which was a New York Times and #1 international bestseller. McKinty’s books have been translated into over forty languages, and he has won the Edgar Award, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Ned Kelly Award (three times), the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Macavity Award, and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. His novel The Island was an instant New York Times bestseller and made their “Best Thrillers of 2022” list.

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