Frank vs the cartel

In Spite of Thunder
by Thomas Mark McKinnon

Vancouver: 1083899 B.C, 2025
$24.95 / 9781069647405

Reviewed by Isabella Ranallo

*

Opening with descriptions of tactical boots, former US Marines, and a shooter on the loose in a remote warehouse, Thomas Mark McKinnon’s fast-paced debut, an action-thriller, ticks all the boxes of the genre. 

When FBI agent Frank Adler’s daughter and her best friend go missing during a post-graduation vacation along the West Coast, Adler goes rogue to discover their fate within the sex trafficking cartels of Mexico. The detective-style plot of In Spite of Thunder is rich with varied settings and characters that keep the pages turning. While the book loses steam and moves in confusing directions in its last third, resulting in either an incomplete ending or a set-up for a sequel, Vancouver-based part-time firefighter McKinnon still offers a sufficient thrill.

Just be aware that if you read the back cover of the book you may be getting something a bit different than summarized. The story begins some time after Frank’s daughter, Sara, is rescue from the cartel. This means that within the initial two chapters, the question of whether Sara survives is answered. She does. For me, this caused about 90% of the suspense to evaporate. True, the fate of her friend, Marla, remains murky, but the majority of the reader’s emotional connection will be to the protagonist’s daughter (sorry, Marla). 

When Frank does rescue Sara, it is strangely anti-climatic and Sara fades from the narrative. What about her reaction to the trauma she went through? What about her reunion with her mother? There was not even an emotional moment between her and her father. I’m aware this is a thriller, which are not known for gushy emotions, but the narrative misses resolution to Sara’s arc without any of these key moments post-abduction. Sara’s also a character prior to her rescuing, with chapters dedicated to her own attempts to achieve freedom, so her descent into passivity within the narrative is even more marked. Instead, the plot does a 180—with Frank hyper-focused on bringing down the cartel, isolating himself from his wife and newly-liberated daughter. The story concludes on a dizzying succession of double crosses upon double crosses, and unfortunately without much resolution.

As a main character, Frank is fairly two-dimensional. A former US marine turned FBI agent whose first resort is his gun and second an arsenal of f-bombs, he is essentially the paper cutout of silhouette-of-man-running-with-gun-on-thriller-front-cover. What’s strange is that there’s an abundance of male characters with distinct personalities and compelling backstories. Mike, Frank’s work partner, with his wicked sense of humour. Winston, his superior, with a mysterious past that reached back into WWII-era Amsterdam. Maybe Frank simply falls victim to Boring Main Character Syndrome.

Another character who is decisively not boring is Ken Collins, a crooked pharmaceutical CEO in cahoots with the cartel. Here’s a character you love to hate. McKinnon’s keen moments of comedy are best on display during Collins’ chapters, as exemplified by a line like “the majority of what had just come out of his mouth was utter bullshit, but it didn’t matter. Politically, he knew it was irrefutable.” Invoking a combination of cartoon villain and Donald Trump (or is that an overlapping Venn diagram?), Collins’ contributions to the story are equal parts amusing and revealing—successful satire.

There are also some memorable and hilarious side characters. Brandon, a surfer bro who cleans his parents’ properties (and accidentally rented one out under the table to human traffickers for weed) steals the show while Frank impatiently interrogates him for information on his daughter. Again, the lackeys Frank encounters on his investigations are often more compelling than Frank himself.

As mentioned above, In Spite of Thunder has all the hallmarks of a thriller. Page-turning suspense, detailed fight scenes… and unnecessary objectification of women. For example, Donna, Frank’s wife, is introduced as “a tall, picturesque auburn-streaked brunette with the lean build of a seasoned triathlete.” …Okay. There were a few more instances where this objectifying language annoyed me, such as when the author referred to women as “females” or “a female.” I’m not including the scenes with Collins and the trafficked women and girls in my critique, because obviously the language there was purposely reflective of the characters, not the author. Even so, the amount of detail given to physical descriptions of women who were only passing characters, especially consistent commentary on if they were fat or thin, was unneeded. To be fair, McKinnon describes a male character as an “attractive twenty-four-year-old Californian with emerald-green eyes,” so maybe it’s not latent misogyny but a penchant for bizarrely over-detailed character descriptions.

Some nit-picky stuff: an abundance of run-on sentences made for clunky reading at times. I also cannot recall what spiting thunder has to do with the plot, making the book title questionable. But again, the plot itself was strongly presented with compelling characters, multiple storylines, and intriguing developments.

Self-assured even in its clunkier choices, In Spite of Thunder should be an enjoyable read for any thriller enthusiast. For myself, I hadn’t really dabbled in the genre beforehand besides an episode or two of NCIS, which this reminded me of in both pacing and content. I was surprised by how fast I turned the pages! Who knows: maybe I will keep my eyes peeled for that (maybe?) sequel.

At age four, Isabella Ranallo stole a sheet of her mother’s office paper to write the first page of a novel about ten kids stranded on a desert island. This led—with some twists and turns, like any good story—to graduating with a Creative Writing and History BA from VIU, where she was awarded the Barry Broadfoot Award for Journalism/Creative Non-Fiction and the Pat Bevan Scholarship for Poetry. Since graduation, Isabella has worked at the Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre as a research assistant; she currently freelances at Granville Island Publishing. Her work has appeared in the BC Federation of Writers’ WordWorks magazine. [Editor’s note: Isabella recently reviewed Arleen Paré for BCR.]

*

The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

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