If FOUR DAYS established Iain Ryan as our most accurate and pertinent James Ellroy worshiper, DRAINLAND is where he develops his own identity as a storyteller and fortunately for him and for us readers, it's just as interesting.

Set close to twenty years after the events of FOUR DAYS, DRAINLAND tells the story of Laura Romano, another disgraced cops who suffers the throes of exile Jim Harris before her. Except that Harris is still exiled on Tunnel Island and entangled with another case of gruesome police misconduct. Oh and there's a clusterf*ck of a double homicide no one wants to solve on top of that

DRAINLAND was villainous and melodramatic a pro wrestling heel and it's exactly why I loved it. Ryan, mostly because of his reckless abandon to his stylistic choices, is one of these authors who can write about redemption and not being cheesy. Loved it. Maybe a little less than FOUR DAYS because the last third of the novel felt a little unnecessary, but loved it anyway and if you love crooked cops novels as much as I do, Ryan is your guy. He's the future.11 s Meigan1,239 72

Out of the two Iain Ryan books I've read, they seem to share one common trait: every time I finish one, I'm left feeling greasy. Ryan has a knack for creating characters with seemingly no redeeming qualities and he proved that in his first novel, Four Days, by introducing Jim Harris, a cop with a very intimate knowledge of the dirty and dark crime world in Australia. Harris is back in Drainland and 20 years later and semi-retired, he's still personally acquainted with the dregs of society. This time around, he's grudgingly helping another dirty cop on a case that he really wants swept under the rug. Ignoring the case would make his life easier, but disgraced cop/transplant Laura Romano still has a shred of decency and wants to do the job right. Or, as right as she can while existing in a perpetual haze of drugs and booze.

As I said before, Ryan's books make me feel dirty. And greasy. There really aren't any heroes, barely any good guys, dirty cops aplenty, and somehow, I find myself still picking the characters apart and finding at least one redeemable quality in each of them. In the case of Romano, despite being disgraced and banished to Tunnel Island, she's still a good cop at heart. No matter how deep she gets in the drug scene, no matter how involved she gets with the dark side, she's a cop who wants the job done and the bad guys punished. She was certainly a great contradictory character, despite her extracurricular activities.

Bottom line - fast-paced and full of action and questionable characters, Drainland had everything I look forward to in crime fiction. Recommended for fans of the genre and I will certainly be on the lookout for anything else by Iain Ryan.





**Many thanks to the author for providing a copy in exchange for my honest opinion.received-for-review7 s Meigan1,239 72

Out of the two Iain Ryan books I've read, they seem to share one common trait: every time I finish one, I'm left feeling greasy. Ryan has a knack for creating characters with seemingly no redeeming qualities and he proved that in his first novel, Four Days, by introducing Jim Harris, a cop with a very intimate knowledge of the dirty and dark crime world in Australia. Harris is back in Drainland and 20 years later and semi-retired, he's still personally acquainted with the dregs of society. This time around, he's grudgingly helping another dirty cop on a case that he really wants swept under the rug. Ignoring the case would make his life easier, but disgraced cop/transplant Laura Romano still has a shred of decency and wants to do the job right. Or, as right as she can while existing in a perpetual haze of drugs and booze.

As I said before, Ryan's books make me feel dirty. And greasy. There really aren't any heroes, barely any good guys, dirty cops aplenty, and somehow, I find myself still picking the characters apart and finding at least one redeemable quality in each of them. In the case of Romano, despite being disgraced and banished to Tunnel Island, she's still a good cop at heart. No matter how deep she gets in the drug scene, no matter how involved she gets with the dark side, she's a cop who wants the job done and the bad guys punished. She was certainly a great contradictory character, despite her extracurricular activities.

Bottom line - fast-paced and full of action and questionable characters, Drainland had everything I look forward to in crime fiction. Recommended for fans of the genre and I will certainly be on the lookout for anything else by Iain Ryan.





**Many thanks to the author for providing a copy in exchange for my honest opinion.received-for-review4 s Norma3,531 10

"... you can only fight things so much."
This is a dark and hard crime novel with real difference. Very well written, atmospheric and with frightening immediacy, which pulls the reader right into it's heart, this is still not an easy book. The story follows troubled Laura Romano, police detective reduced to a constable, as she is reassigned to an area popular with tourists but rife with all the vices of sex, drugs and gambling, where an uneasy truce exists between all of the gangs and the police stay clear of any trouble. Very little crime is reported but, as Laura discovers, 32 suicides were declared in one year alone. One of these suicides occurred in an hotel not long after she arrives: a young man, son of a senator, is found dead beside a woman from the area, herself an apparent drug overdose victim. No one seems to care, not her colleagues nor even the police on the mainland and certainly not the locals.

This is a very dark tale of inner despair and outer degradation. Seen mostly from Laura's own drug raddled eyes, she tries to do her job despite hostility and lethargy from others in the hope a result might just redeem her name and get her away from the Tunnel. But it is a dangerous path to take as she doesn't understand the way things work there. She copes as best she can, mostly alone apart from her constant companions of tobacco, drink and drugs.

This is my first Iain Ryan book and my thanks to to Book Review 22, who gifted me this copy and introduced me to his work. Not a comfortable read as both the main protagonist and her environment were very flawed and not nice to know. But the book was so engrossing that the 'i couldn't put it down' cliche truly applied here. Certainly not recommended to everyone but for those who enjoy gritty, gripping crime drama with an unusual approach and warts and all characters, a must2016 reviewed thriller1 Jennifer Holzapfel1,037 4

Laura Romano, detective and junkie, gets caught up in a sting because of her boyfriend. She is given a choice by a federal officer, face years in prison or go become a constable on Tunnel Island.
She heads to Tunnel Island, where the worst of the worst goes on with the police doing nothing about it.
When she questions the ways of the island, she is told they take care of their own, without outside help and to mind her own business. She starts drinking heavily and barely goes to work, which is what they want her to do.
It all changes when a murder occurs in one of the hotels. She starts and investigation and hits roadblocks all the way.
How can a Junkie constable with a nose for trouble survive on Tunnel Island, knowing she has no chance of being transferred anywhere else in Australia?
Will she solve a crime or become another one of the unfortunate suicides that plague the island?1 Jay Williams1,718 25

I usually don't care for stories with unable main characters. This book is the exception. On an island off the coast of Melbourne, the cops are rejects, the criminals have learned to share, and it seems no one cares about obeying the law. Laura Romano is a self-destructive addict with few redeeming qualities. Yet, the depravity of some of the other characters makes her look good. She uncovers the secrets of the island as she tries to earn her way off by pursuing a case of murder and overdose being written off as a suicide and overdose. The cast includes just about every kind of evil character in the world. The story finishes with an unly ending that draws together all the evil elements. Don't read this for a "happy time," but the story is too fascinating to ignore or put down. I want more!1 Douglas O'Neal13

Not your typical crime story

I picked this up not knowing what yo expect. I was not disappointed. A totally different kind of cop, with not a lot of redeeming qualities, looks at things no one wants her to see. I was drawn to the characters because they came across as true. Everyone has good and bad, none of them were examples to follow, but they all do the best they can with their lives. I won't tell you how it ends, but I felt satisfied. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series. Barb VanderWel1,819 27

I love this & I can't wait for more.
I will be also leaving a review on Goodreads @ Amazon.
And letting everyone know about it.
So i gave it a 5 Stars. David Nemeth78 14

This is the second book I’ve read that has taken place near and around the coast of Australia’s Queensland - for those of us unfamiliar with this area of Australia imagine the beaches of Florida and the casinos of Las Vegas all mixed in with crime, a lot crime and on both sides of the law. This first book was Andrew Nette’s Gunshine State (280 Steps) which I reviewed in the beginning of November.

Throughout the fall, I saw a lot of Iain Ryan’s Drainland (self-published) on the internets. This can mean two things: either that Ryan is doing a great job self-promoting the book or other readers were recommending the book. Turns out it was both.

Ryan’s Drainland takes place on Tunnel Island, a fictional place where all the cops are as honest as Vic Mackey. When we first meet Laura Romano, we find out she is a cop who has friends in all the wrong people. With a drug problem that includes anything that can be snorted or popped in her mouth, things come quickly crashing down on her as she is finally arrested. But she is offered a life-line as a spot on the Tunnel Island police force just opened up.

When we arrive on Tunnel Island with Romano, both the reader and Romano are trying to get their bearings on what is exactly happening in this decadent resort island. Throwing a not-so recovering drug addict who washes down pills with booze on an island filled with lackadaisical policemen, drugs, gambling and more drugs is a cluster fuck in the making.

Ryan has built an incredible corrupt world filled with dangerous criminals and equally dangerous cops. His writing on the Romano's constant downfall is incredibly detailed as well as her battle to remain a cop.
Laura Romano looked hell up close. Her eyes had a creamy red hue to them and seemed to elude focus. A ginger crop of her fringe lay greased to her forehead with sweat. She moved slowly, but was well trained. As soon as she stepped inside she went into cop mode, scanning.
Ryan has several other books on Tunnel Island with Harsh Recovery just out. And with a quick subscription to Ryan's newsletter, he will give you the prequel, Four Days, gratis. If any of these books are half-as-good as Drainland, I will have some good reading in my new future. David FreasAuthor 2 books29

Liking the main character in a story is one of my main criteria for enjoying the story itself. I didn’t find anything able about Laura Romano. She’s alcoholic, drug-addicted, and self-destructive and not making any effort to straighten herself out.

That would be tolerable if there were any decent characters in this novel, but there aren’t. Every one of them is dirty in one way or another. And Tunnel Island is a cesspool of corruption, greed, and machinations.

This is one of the darkest books I have ever read. There is not one positive aspect to it. It is violent and bloody. And by the end of the book, not one character has changed for the better.

Did anybody proofread this book before uploading it? Apparently not. It is rife with more errors in every aspect of grammar and usage than I’ve seen in a long time.

I can't say I hated this book but it was far from okay. So a more accurate rating would be 1½ stars – I absolutely did not it.

It all adds up to a book not worth reading. And an author I will never read again. W.H. LockAuthor 16 books21

Usually in the hard boiled section, it's populated by protagonists that really belong in a normal thriller genre book. A proper hard boiled novel has a protagonist that is mostly a terrible person who has one or maybe two positive traits. This book nails it. Romano wants to be a good cop but s the drugs and the booze too much to be any good. Harris is a bad guy. That's it, he's just bad. Plenty of violence that isn't glorified. the world, the violence is dark, dirty, and brutal.

Why 4 stars?

I didn't really the character hopping. It's something that really pulls me out of a story if we get inside of more than one or two characters. And as a result, you don't really see or feel the impact of the central story on the characters or their impact on that central plot. Which, despite all the action happening, takes a while to develop.

I was provided this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review. April92 1 follower

"...[He] knew he needed this house. He needed the quiet, especially now. It gave him a sense of things. When he kept a quiet home, he could spot disruption a long way off." Not that I want to attribute myself to this character, but this line spoke to me. The book reeled me in. The beginning was a bit haphazard, to the point that I wondered if it was part of a series and I missed the first few books. But as everything came together in the end (and it does!), it revealed the "haphazard" beginning to be a brilliant set up to a whirlwind ending. giveaways-read Alaina Maxam728 42

This was a book that was well worth the read. kind a confusing in the beginning but then it all made sense Cherie152 2

Dark and real

This is the darkest novel I have ever read. Not one truly decent person in the whole novel. The main characters were all sickos. It is so well written you feel their anguish and depravity. The two main characters oversee and manage a crowd of criminals with murder and physical abuse, while feeding their own addictions. I saw a part of the world I never wanted to see. This author is really talented. I to read more of his work, but hopefully not so dark. Although my tastes are much different, I have to say this is a remarkable book. Please write some lighter stuff for those of us with queasy stomachs. Lillian Cummings1,759 9

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