So hooked I couldn’t break The Chain

I can still hear Fleetwood Mac lyrics ‘you would never break the chain’. The words may have come from genius songwriters but their sentiment also rings true for Adrian McKinty’s The Chain.

The story begins with the kidnap of Kylie as she waits for the school bus. She’s bundled into the back seat of a car by a man and woman in ski masks and is driven to a carefully selected hideout.

Kylie’s abduction isn’t like any other. Her kidnappers have taken her as it’s the only way they can guarantee the release of their own child, who has also been abducted.

For Kylie to be freed, her mother Rachel must kidnap a child, whose parents will also have to kidnap another child, thus continuing The Chain.

As well as plucking a child off the street to hold hostage, each parental victim must pay ransom to the organisers of The Chain through any means necessary to ensure the safe release of their child. If anything goes wrong or you alert the authorities, your kid is dead or you have to kill the kid you’ve taken and select another target. Gripping stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Rachel, our resilient lead is a single mother who is not only dealing with the abduction of her only child, she is also recovering from gruelling cancer treatment. She hastily gets a loan and enlists the help of her ex brother-in-law, Pete, to carry out her kidnap plan. The pair create a list of possible targets before swiping a kid from the street and doing everything The Chain asks.

The more I read on of the novel, the more I realised that it wasn’t just about Rachel and Pete freeing Kylie and bringing her home, it was about destroying The Chain and walking away with their lives.

A cleverly crafted system, The Chain was created not only as a money-making scheme, but also as a way of inflicting terror.

The story also incorporates the life of two children who were taken by their father from their mother while living on a hippie combine. The odd chapter weaves in their story as we follow Rachel’s own plight against The Chain. The first half of the book was truly thrilling and, as the story progressed, it was interesting to see how families deal with the trauma of a child being kidnapped, and what the repercussions can be.

The second half reeled me in hook, line and sinker. I barely moved from the couch one Sunday as I ploughed through the final chapters, and my other half told me to stop gasping out loud but I couldn’t help it. Some of the goings-on were like a kick in the gut and literally took my breath away. Rachel is tough, and her character really hardens as the story goes on. Her and Pete’s dynamic shifts slightly and you see them as not as a mum and an ex-Marine, but as equals in the face of evil fighting to break The Chain.

The Chain is different from McKinty’s previous novels. Set in America, it’s his first stor y based overseas.

I was really engrossed in the American setting, and felt like a fly on the wall as Rachel fought against The Chain.

For a thrilling read that’ll have you pinned to a chair for hours on end, grab yourself a copy.

Chain keep us together.