The Chain by Adrian McKinty on July 9, 2019
Genres: Fiction / Thrillers / Crime, Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
“In the future, it won’t be the state that keeps tabs on everyone by extensive use of surveillance; it will be the people. They’ll do the state’s work for it by constantly uploading their locations, interests, food preferences, restaurant choices, political ideas, and hobbies to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites.”
Rachel Klein drops her daughter at the bus stop and heads into her day. But a cell phone call from an unknown number changes everything: it’s a woman on the line, informing her that she has Kylie bound and gagged in her back seat, and the only way Rachel will see her again is to follow her instructions exactly: pay a ransom, and find another child to abduct. This is no ordinary kidnapping: the caller is a mother herself, whose son has been taken, and if Rachel doesn’t do as she’s told, the boy will die. Rachel is now part of The Chain, an unending and ingenious scheme that turns victims into criminals, and is making someone else very rich in the process. The rules are simple, the moral challenges impossible; find the money fast, find your victim, and then commit a horrible act you’d have thought yourself incapable of just twenty-four hours ago. But what the masterminds behind The Chain know is that parents will do anything for their children. It turns out that kidnapping is only the beginning.
The premise is super creative and I love how intense the majority of the story was. Rachel has to almost immediately transform herself in order to play The Chain’s game. She goes from meek, defeated suburban housewife to a criminal mastermind. This is such a wicked plot, which is masterfully developed by incorporating the distress, the twists, and the frantic and terrifying steps Rachel must face.
I gave this novel four stars. For me, the pacing was a little off, however. I did enjoy the first half of the book a lot more than the second half. Overall though, it’s a solid story. You have to be able to just roll with a few implausible details and have fun with it. That’s what it is meant to be, a fun, wild ride.