The Chain

Author: Adrian McKinty
Genre: Suspense
Type: Hardcover
Pages: 357
Publisher: Mulholland Books (Hachette)
First Published: July 9, 2019
Opening Lines: She's sitting at the bus stop checking the likes on her Instagram feed and doesn't even notice the man with the gun until he's almost nex to her.

Book Description from GoodReads: You just dropped off your child at the bus stop. A panicked stranger calls your phone. Your child has been kidnapped, and the stranger explains that their child has also been kidnapped, by a completely different stranger. The only way to get your child back is to kidnap another child within 24 hours. Your child will be released only when the next victim's parents kidnap yet another child, and most importantly, the stranger explains, if you don't kidnap a child, or if the next parents don't kidnap a child, your child will be murdered. You are now part of The Chain.

My Rating: 2 stars

My Review: I was drawn to The Chain because of its unique and compelling premise that focuses on a parent's worst nightmare. A woman's daughter is kidnapped and in order to get her back, she must join The Chain by kidnapping someone else's child or put her daughter's life at risk. Sounds like a great suspense read, right? Sadly, this book didn't live up to its hype for me.

The further the book progresses, the more readers will have to set aside basic logic because things go from frustrating to ridiculously implausible quickly. It relies heavily on serendipitous situations and it's eyeroll worthy how easily the main character completes several hard tasks in record time (with no impediments). But my biggest problem was the fanciful handling of a serious, time sensitive medical issue (one that affects my family). This particular instance was solved in such an impossibly simplistic way with no basis in fact, medical or otherwise. It was, quite honestly, not just fiction but irresponsible misinformation. 

The issues pile up from there. The book is weakly written with choppy sentences, mundane dialogue and a definite lack of character development. There's a lot of 'this happened, and then this happened, and then this …'. I'm being shown the issues but with a total lack of emotion and tension which is surprising for a book that deals with abducted children, a cancer patient and good parents who are pushed to do the unthinkable.

This author has written many other books, but The Chain felt like it was a quickly written, poorly edited debut (perhaps the rush was to impress Paramount who has offered McKinty a seven-figure movie deal?). I don't mind a quickly written read but it has to be good. This book has an interesting premise and a lot of hype but that's about it.