My Review of The Chain

My Review of The Chain by Adrian McKinty:

What plaudits can I lay upon Adrian McKinty and The Chain that haven't already been said and aren't thoroughly deserved but here goes ...

The Chain is a masterclass in how to terrify your reader into blithering wrecks, and have them terrified to let their offspring out of their sights, by playing on every parents worst fear: that of losing a child. It's the fear we don't, and won't, talk about, it's the one we won't even voice for fear of tempting the Fates. We blatantly lie and pretend it's something innocuous such as being buried alive, devoured by flesh eating beetles or eating by werewolves. McKinty makes us not only confront this fear but actually live it too...

Then, in a stroke of genius, McKinty makes the pertinent point that it's not just parents that suffer, it's the extended family too. To then make it even more gut wrenchingly painful the child in question is an only child and Rachel, the parent, is a single mum battling to survive in more ways than one. 

This is a taut thriller that allows its reader no respite, it's relentless with not even a drunken porter in sight to lighten the mood occasionally. McKinty knows what he's doing, we're tipped straight into the action and can't come up for air until the final page. We're horrified for Rachel but also horrified by her and the lengths she's willing to go to to save her daughter. Characters are fully realised and we see the flaws hidden from others, in someways they are so apparently normal, just like us, but thrown headfirst into a dystopian world from which they cannot escape unscathed with their moral compass anything other than smashed to pieces. 

Not content with making us confront our worst fear, McKinty proves that we're mere novices, trust me on this for he's diabolical, everytime I thought that it cannot get any worse for Rachel purely because there isn't anything worse ... McKinty came up with a new level of Hell. The narrative could easily have become hyperbolic but it never does, it's always all too plausible and left me scrubbing my social media footprint just in case. Finally, and just to show how meticulous McKinty is, even Rachel's name has meaning.

Hats off to you Mr McKinty, The Chain is without a doubt my book of the year...