CRIMINAL. That darkness and corruption dwell behind the shiny, happy faade of middle-class life is a common enough theme in American storytelling. Adrian McKinty has written a novel that's nail-biting, smart, and convincing, with a plot-jolting twist that readers of Gone Girl will love. Find out more >>. Your child will be released when your victim's parents kidnap another child. A masterpiece of tension. "Gene Walz, Winnipeg Free Press"Adrian McKinty is one of the most striking and most memorable crime voices to emerge on the scene in years. Rachel's 13-year-old daughter Kylie was waiting at the bus stop while she headed to a doctor's appointment. At once a commentary on social media, greed, revenge, love, and true evil, and written with an almost lyrical quality, this book will have readers searching for more McKinty titles to devour. EXCLUSIVE: In a seven-figure deal, Universal Pictures has optioned The Chain, the 2019 bestselling novel by Adrian McKinty. It's something parents do every morning: Rachel Klein drops her daughter at the bus stop and heads into her day. One of the finest novels ever produced in the genre. New Thriller 'The Chain' Has An Origin Almost As Exciting As Its Plot. This information may be used to tailor the advertising provided to website viewers. McKinty returned to writing after the book landed him a six-figure English-language book deal, and was optioned for a film adaptation by Paramount Pictures. Adrian McKinty has 58 books on Goodreads with 414630 ratings. His father was a boilermaker and ship's engineer and his mother a secretary. Once he sets up the idea that each set of parents with a kidnapped child must kidnap some other, random young victim or know that The Whatever will kill their kid, find them where they live, inflict unspeakable misery and never go away, his book becomes much more reasonable. Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. "Adrian McKinty's The Chain is the rare thriller that's not only fiendishly clever but also powerfully empathetic, with both hair-raising twists and complex, fully-realized characters." New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Since We Fell - Dennis Lehane 2.0 stars I hate to spend a lot of time reviewing this book because I was thoroughly unimpressed. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead mans heart and lungs. Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene. The Chain Adrian McKinty 3.80 89,970 ratings12,229 reviews Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller (2019) It's something parents do every morning: Rachel Klein drops her daughter at the bus stop and heads into her day. Now the girl, Kylie, thinks about how worried her mother will be. She's disarmed by Floyds charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. You are now part of the chain. She can't do this, she must do this, she is now a completely different person who has done this. Sometimes, though, it feels as though it moves a little too fast. It's an infuriating choice, to torture the reader this way, but it's the smart one. Try. The rules are simple: find the money, find your victim, and then commit a horrible act youd have thought yourself incapable of just 24 hours ago. I got shortlisted for an Edgar, won a couple of awards, and so then that set me on that path for the next six years of reluctantly, kind of being dragged into writing about Northern Ireland in the 1980s". While Rachel scrambles to get the money together (even though it isn't about the money, she is told) and pick a child to steal, it becomes clear that she is being tracked and her every move is being monitored. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up in Victoria Council Estate, Carrickfergus, County Antrim. Suggested age range - Adult Format - Paperback Product dimensions - 5.5" W x 8.2" H x 1.1" D Genre - Mystery and Thriller Publisher - Little, Brown and Company, Publication date - 09-22-2020 Its a fast read with plenty of excitement and emotion. Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. When the first bullet hit my chest, I thought of my daughter Dr. Marc Seidman has been shot twice, his wife has been murdered, and his six-month-old daughter has been kidnapped. Guys. This nightmarish story is incredibly propulsive and original. I am blown away. If Rachel doesnt follow the program, Kylie will die. Otherwise The Chain will be broken. BOOK RATING: The Story 4 / 5 ; The Writing 3 / 5 Overall 3.5 Get your copy of The Chain from: Bookshop US Amazon Book Depository Booktopia AU OR listen to the audiobook FREE with Audible's Trial (check eligibility) I have also since read McKinty's second blockbuster action-thriller The Island. Thats how girls vanish. Thats how Patterson books sound, too. It's called the Chain, and it's a Ponzi scheme from hell. Retrieve credentials. He moved to the United States in the early 1990s, living first in Harlem, New York and from 2001 on, in Denver, Colorado, where he taught high school English and began writing fiction. The suspense here is intense, as one would expect, given the premise, but the true brilliance in this unrelenting novel comes from the way McKinty makes Rachel confront her own capacity for evil and deal with its reverberations, not only on herself and the child she kidnaps, but also on her own child, Kylie. GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION | But something far worse is to hit her and Kylie. But by God are these sequences nail-biting. * My receiving a copy from the publisherfor review purposes did not impact the expression of my honest opinions. [18], Patrick Anderson of the Washington Post has praised McKinty as a leading light of the "new wave" of Irish crime novelists along with Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes and John Connolly. . There are breakneck thrillers and then there's The Chain. Are we not men? SUSPENSE, by THRILLER | But then a phone call changes everything. But what they dont know is that they may have met their match. [18], The stand-alone thriller was inspired by the chain letters of his youth and contemporary reports of hostage exchanges. [29], Two more Sean Duffy novels to be published by Blackstone Publishing[70][71], On a blog post dated July 15, 2021 on his oficcial site, McKinty explains that the 7th Sean Duffy novel (The Detective Up Late) may be out in late 2022. ", Adrian McKinty is one of the most striking and most memorable crime voices to emerge on the scene in years. Stanley Milgram's postwar experiments in social cruelty, determining what kind of electric shocks subjects would administer to other people if they thought it was normal, aren't directly cited here, but they are essentially what The Chain is aboutBeneath its surface of high-speed thrills, The Chain is clearly the work of the philosophical thinker McKinty has always beenHe would like you to realize that what you're reading is existentialism in action, with Rachel defining herself moment by moment with each choice she makes. How? Her brain tells her to run, but she doesnt make the correct split-second decision, and she is taken at gunpoint. It seemed like any other morning. TANA FRENCH, A masterpiece. Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown, Categories: Jewells (I Found You, 2017, etc.) To McKintys great credit, he can make readers wonder at any point whether the ground may fall beneath their feet and how much evil they might be pushed toward. That, or lose their own children forever. If I dont make it, dont let them cast some asshole to play me in the movie version of this Adrian McKinty, The Chainif(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'bookloverbookreviews_com-leader-1','ezslot_4',683,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-bookloverbookreviews_com-leader-1-0'); The Chain is an unashamedly commercial novel that I think will be better suited to the big screen, and I really hope it makes it there Not because I think this particular novel is more deserving than others, but so that McKinty then has the means and international platform to return to producing the top-quality fiction long-time fans know and love. Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles of the 1970s and 1980s. GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | Rachel Klein drops her daughter, Kylie, at the bus stop and heads into her day. Max Brooks He read law at the University of Warwick and politics and philosophy at the University of Oxford. You know youre having a bad day when you get a phone call telling you your daughter has been kidnapped, and, to get her back, you must not only pay $25,000 but also kidnap somebody else. Thirteen-year-old Kylie is waiting for the school bus on Plum Island, Massachusetts, when a man and a woman pull up wearing ski masks. Psychological notes are played deeply. Good for him: Those were the bad guys, after all. And McKinty finds a lot to work with in the suspenseful possibility of its undoing. As Rachel becomes more determined to bring the whole chain down, McKinty loses a bit of narrative credibility; more frustratingly, in the back half of the book, he slows down, adding fat to. Adrian McKinty's The Chain is the rare thriller that's not only fiendishly clever but also powerfully empathetic, . Peter (on semi hiatus and trying to catch up), Sandy *TheworldcouldendwhileIwasreadingndIwouldnto, https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2018.html. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Where McKinty succeeds, in a book that feels heavily worked over to ensure no tangents detract from main events, is in making sure the premise isnt the main event. DISCLOSURE: As an Amazon Associate (and affiliate with a range of other retailers) I earn from qualifying purchases.