Adrian McKintyThe Chain

Disclaimer: Please note I am a member of Amazon Vine and received an Advance Reader Copy of this book. What this means: I am *required* to review it, and Amazon reviews *require* a star rating. I prefer not to give a star rating to a book I haven't finished since I might not be fair to the book as a whole; but I can't rate a book I'm not finishing with more than one star. You see the dilemma. So, here goes.This is the eleventh book I have read (well, almost read) by Adrian McKinty. I have loved the Michael Forsythe trilogy, the Sean Duffy series, and to a lesser but still definite degree Falling Glass. I grabbed the opportunity to read this for review although the premise sounded a bit far-fetched and I don't read thrillers as a rule. I had no doubt McKinty could make a thriller readable for me and infuse his signature character development that has always made me worry and root for his protagonists even when they're committing cold-blooded murder.Forty pages into The Chain, I felt as if there must be two Adrian McKintys writing fiction and this must be the other one. The dialogue was informational, voiceless, and passionless; the wit was missing altogether; the protagonist was entirely flat. I persevered because hey, McKinty wrote this. It's got to get better. It can't not get better.Well, at least by p. 151 (where I stopped), it doesn't. Pete is an ex-Marine because the plot needs him to know what he's doing. Rachel is a cancer survivor so we sympathize with her. On top of the lack of character depth is a lack of reality in a single thing going on so far. At the point I gave up, the author causes his supposedly competent hero to be stupid for the purpose of tension, and then escalates tension yet again only to de-escalate the new tension immediately because the only purpose for the second tension was, you guessed it, more tension. (I would be more specific but I don't want to give spoilers.)Maybe the thriller audience has no problem with writing driven entirely by plot twists; if you love thrillers, don't take my review too seriously. But if you love Sean Duffy and Michael Forsythe, don't expect to find characters of their caliber here.Anyway I'm done. I don't buy any of it and, worse, if I don't care about the characters as real people, the book can quite literally wipe them all out and I'm still not going to care.[Edit: I reconsidered the fairness of not finishing a book that I'm required to review, but finishing it did not improve my opinion of it, so my star rating stands.]

After successfully completing chemotherapy, divorcing her incompatible (and immature) husband and landing a philosophy teaching job, Rachel O'Neill is finally feeling like she's in control of her life and heading in the right direction. Until one day she gets a message from her oncologist saying to call her back right away, plus - far more terrifying - an untraceable message that her thirteen-year-old daughter, Kylie, has been taken from the bus stop and is being held hostage. But not to worry, if Rachel comes up with the stiff extortion fee plus kidnaps another child and repeats the crime to another innocent family, Kylie will be returned to her unharmed. You see, Rachel is now part of the "Chain," which has supposedly been going on for years without detection, and the price of alerting the authorities is the death of her child and further retaliation. Reluctantly after unsuccessfully trying to go it on her own, Rachel enlists her brother-in-law Pete, a Marine Corps veteran with addiction issues but who nevertheless would do anything for his niece, to carry out her duties. (Meanwhile Kylie is working on a plan of her own to free herself.) But Rachel comes to realize that even if she is successful, the scars of what has occurred will affect her, Pete and Kylie for the rest of their lives. At least perhaps if Rachel can manage to break the Chain by getting in touch with others who are privy to its workings, she'll be able to quiet her tortured conscience, but choosing that path will re-risk her family's lives. Still, as the reader is learning, the mastermind behind the whole Chain is ruthless - not to mention using it for personal nefarious reasons - and the trail may lead Rachel closer to home than she suspects.Thoughts: The first half of this thriller is riveting, taking a scenario that is every parent's worst nightmare and adding a "Twilight Zone" twist to distinguish this from other kidnap novels. While it may be easy for the reader to unfavorably judge Rachel at times, it's still impossible to know how most of us would behave in such a horrifying bind. Pete is also an interesting character: a man struggling with demons even before he's enlisted into this mess, and the evolving relationship between him and Rachel is realistic and touching. Unfortunately, I found the second half to be more disjointed like the author was trying to cram into much that wasn't explored in the first part. It also seemed like he tried overly hard to be "deep" at the finale. However, it's still an absorbing page turner of a read.

I am a huge fan of the Sean Duffy series. So when I saw McKinty had a new book coming out, I immediately preordered it. Then I read that it was a stand-alone. OK. Then I read the premise. Jeez, it sounded preposterous. But I believe in supporting the authors I enjoy and bought it anyway.It turned out to be a waste of both my time and my money. This couldn’t be McKinty. The writing was perfunctory, without a hint of style or wit.Actually, I found the idea that a parent, going through hell, would still kidnap someone else’s child and put them through hell, repellent. And totally unbelievable. The exchange kidnappings the author refers to in the afterward were adults, not children.Having subsequently read about the author’s financial problems and the bonanza this book has turned out to be, well, I am happy for him. He gave me a lot of pleasure with the Duffy novels. And now that he is solvent, I hope he writes more Duffys. I will try to erase the memory of this disaster as quickly as possible.

I’ve loved the author’s Belfast novels (more, soon, please) and so I approached this foray into the USA with hope for a great read. That was heightened by the enormous praise given (in the early pages of the ebook) by practitioners of the trade whose works I greatly admire.Sadly, I was brought down to earth. The plot device is very clever. But the tale is sloppily told ( and there is too much suspension of disbelief required). Worse, from about three-quarters of the way through, it seems as if the author has realised what a dire book he has produced. The story sprints breathless.y to an end, giving the very strong impression that the author has realised what a farrago of nonsense he has constructed and is desperate to escape.So: neat idea, not really thought through: one protagonist is a philosopher; another player is a mathematician. Pity the author’s grasp of logic is so weak.The book seems to be selling well. Understandable, since the author has a great track record. But he’s stumbled badly here. I think he should leave Boston and go back to Belfast.

I love this author. I inhaled all six of his Sean Duffy novels within a couple of weeks. So brilliant, so distinctive, so well plotted, so full of learning and beautiful writing, so moving.This is NOTHING like those. The first half is tedious in the extreme - you already know the basic premise of the plot from the dust jacket or the blurb on Amazon - and the first half of the book is a duly ghastly, drawn out narrative of one family’s hideous experience of ‘the chain’. You know what’s going to happen from the start, and it does. Very slowly. It’s boring as hell.The second half of the book then concerns the main protagonist’s attempt to unravel ‘the chain’. This part feels rushed and full of implausibilities (even given the enitrely implausible central conceit). The big twist, such as it is, is introduced very late, then telegraphed a mile in advance before the author himself prematurely gives it up just a couple of chapters later. There’s no suspense. It’s a poor old predictable potboiler, in the vein of a sub-substandard Stephen King thriller. Absolute tripe. Sooooooo disappointed. Just cannot fathom how an author can go from the Duffy novels (A+++) to this C-minus tosh in a misguided attempt to go mainstream. It actually makes me sad. Adrian, please go back to doing what you’re very very good at, and stop trying to be Stephen King.

Oh, I so wanted to give this 5*... I'm such a huge fan of McKinty.Yes, it's a cracking read. Yes, it'll make a great film (in the right hands). Yes, it will bring McKinty into the spotlight. But - and it's a BIG but for me - it could have been written by anyone and set anywhere, whereas his other novels are so distinctive in voice, place, tone and the characters are real originals with heart and soul.That said, The Chain is fast-paced and keeps you hanging in there. Would I read it a second time? No, and I'll probably pass it on to a friend telling him it's a perfect holiday read. However, he's not getting his hands on my other McKinty books. I'm going to be re-reading them. He can go and buy his own!

I have read many disappointing books in my time but this is the absolute worst. It is not just ridiculously far fetched but the characters are equally ridiculous being superficial stereotypes of the highest order. The entire novel is dreadful but the ending is so lazy that it seems the author had backed himself into a corner and could not be bothered coming up with anything remotely feasible. It must be said that this dire ending almost makes the rest of the book seem bearable by comparison.Please do not waste your hard-earned money on this lazy, contrived excuse for a story.I am appalled at the good reviews - especially Ian Rankin whose books I enjoy enormously. I have one thing to add "Et Tu, Ian"I would not in conscience recommend the book to anybody and I am so furious I fell for the publicity and wasted time and money on such over-hyped nonsense.. Do these people who recommend this type of tripe actually read the books at all?Avoid like the plague - caveat emptor!

Adrian McKinty is brilliant. His Sean Duffy thrillers set in Northern Ireland always deserved to be much more successful than they were. This book, set in America, will probably do it for him in terms of sales. I hope it does but for me it seemed manufactured, quite clunky and lacking in the usual McKinty verve and cleverness until the latter part when it did at least become as gripping as all the fellow thriller writers quoted on the jacket say it is. If you are new to McKinty and like this, then I urge you to read his earlier Sean Duffy novels; they are so much better, not least because they are so believable.