Book Review: The Chain by Adrian McKinty

Source: Vine

Publication Date: July 9, 2019

  

YOUR PHONE RINGS.

A STRANGER HAS KIDNAPPED YOUR CHILD.

TO FREE THEM YOU MUST ABDUCT SOMEONE ELSE'S CHILD.

YOUR CHILD WILL BE RELEASED WHEN YOUR VICTIM'S PARENTS KIDNAP ANOTHER CHILD.

IF ANY OF THESE THINGS DON'T HAPPEN:
YOUR CHILD WILL BE KILLED.

YOU ARE NOW PART OF THE CHAIN.

Before I get into my review, I want to state up front a tip for parents: Buy shoes with GPS trackers for your kids or buy trackers you can put in shoes.  I didn't know these existed but The Chain mentions these and I think they are an excellent idea.

Another tip for parents, and perhaps this is even more important: Dial down your social media sharing.  Checking into places, having your location tags on while posting, sharing your weekly or daily routine and having public profiles - this leaves you and your children vulnerable to those who want to use this information to do you or your kids some harm.

Now- onto my review.  As you can tell from the foregoing, this book kinda scared me.  While some of its elements are on the fantastic side,  they are still on this side of possible.  The Chain (while perversely invoking the Fleetwood Mac song) immediately hooked me from the first page and did not let up. It's a roller coaster of a book that begins with a kidnapping and ends with ... I won't tell you, only to say that you will have to take deep breaths while reading. It does not let up.  

The best kinds of books for me are ones in which I slide myself into the main character and start thinking - how would I react? How would I solve this problem?  Sliding into Rachel's mindset was effortless.  Driven by the ferocious need to get her daughter back, she does everything I would or any mother would.  The Chain is an inescapable noose tightening around her neck. Will she and her daughter be able to survive it, let alone rid themselves of it?