I’m afraid I was disappointed with The Chain. Adrian McKinty is an excellent writer and his Sean Duffy series has been a must-read for me. However, this is just another manufactured thriller; its premise is original and it’s well written but I didn’t do much for me, I’m afraid.
The premise and plot are well described elsewhere; The Chain requires people to pay a ransom and then kidnap another child in order to get their own kidnapped child back. I never managed to suspend disbelief quite enough to buy into this implausible scenario, nor did I find the emotional distress of Rachel, the chief protagonist whose daughter has been kidnapped, particularly convincing. Also, she is undergoing cancer treatment and another main character is trying to come off heroin...but why? Neither condition adds anything whatsoever to the plot or characterisation and seemed to me just random add-ons, presumably for added tension or depth or something. It seemed to me to be a rather cheap ploy and just irritated me in the end. I did keep reading because McKinty’s storytelling was good enough to keep me going – just – but I did skim a bit, I spotted the inevitable Twist a mile off and found the overblown climax just a bit ridiculous.
Adrian McKinty is better than this. The things which make the Duffy series so good – the excellent background and understanding of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, plausible plots and penetrating characterisation – were missing here and to me it was just another pretty bog-standard, American-set thriller of the type that appears by the truckload these days. It’s readable but I can only give it a very qualified recommendation.
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