A recent bride. Two headstrong kids. A father rebounding from the loss of his wife. All of them alone in the wilderness of Australia. What could go wrong?

Tom has brought the family to Australia before giving a keynote speech at a medical conference. He accepts an invitation from a local to be ferried over to a private island where, rumor has it, koalas and wombats and other indigenous species run wild. The kids are thrilled. Heather, the young, new wife, is hesitant but wants to placate the kids, who are slow to warm up to her since their mother's death just 14 months earlier.

The adventure turns ugly when Tom, driving a rental car, hits and kills a woman bicycling on the island. Turns out she's a beloved member of a clan that has laid claim to the island and considers the family trespassers and killers. When the matriarch demands revenge, all hell breaks loose.

With surprising skill and resilience, most of the family manages to elude their captors on a days-long flight through the wilderness. Heather is suddenly glad that her stepchildren are as smart and precocious as they are impatient and intolerant of her.

From the author of the chilling bestseller "The Chain," this taut thriller is meant to be read at the same pace as the characters' desperate attempt to stay alive. Running, hiding, running, hiding again. The 384 pages turn quickly as the plot continues to twist and unfold.

Ginny Greene is a Star Tribune copy editor.

The Island

By: Adrian McKinty.

Publisher: Little, Brown and Co., 384 pages, $28.