Your child is kidnapped. In order to get her back, you need to find to pay a ransom. And you have to kidnap another child. If that child’s parents don’t ante up, you are to kill your hostage and choose another target. You are now on The Chain, and the only way off is death.

Rachel O’Neill’s daughter Kylie is taken from the school bus stop on Plum Island, Massachusetts, and is put on The Chain. Rachel reaches out to her ex, Kylie’s dad, but he is out of town, so she call’s Pete, his brother and a combat vet.

As Rachel races to meet the demands to get her daughter back, she’s faced with horrific existential questions: to what lengths will go to see her daughter again? What is she turning into? We also wonder, how did The Chain get started? How did anyone become that demonic? We and Rachel will find out.

At once a heart-pounding page turner and a meditation on evil, Adrian McKinty’s The Chain is a master work of crime fiction. The prose is strong, spare, and direct. The characters, particularly Rachel and Pete, and full-fleshed humans. Rachel’s determination and grit emerge in this book of her trials nobody should have to endure.

If you read one mystery this summer, make it The Chain. You won’t regret or forget it.

Does this sound extremely creepy or what?

You just dropped off your child at the bus stop. A panicked stranger calls your phone. Your child has been kidnapped, and the stranger explains that their child has also been kidnapped, by a completely different stranger. The only way to get your child back is to kidnap another child within 24 hours. Your child will be released only when the next victim’s parents kidnap yet another child, and most importantly, the stranger explains, if you don’t kidnap a child, or if the next parents don’t kidnap a child, your child will be murdered. You are now part of The Chain.

The Chain by Adrian McKinty has a very interesting premise that I have not seen before. Every parent’s ultimate nightmare is having their child abducted. But what if the only way to get your child back from a kidnapper was to kidnap someone else’s child? Yes, that sounds completely twisted and weird. Is the only way to break this chain, to allow your own child to be killed? Yikes!

This is a thriller with twists and turns and lots of suspense. I have a feeling that those who love intense page-turners will love this one!

Coming out on July 9, order here now.

Whoa! This book will have you laser-focused from the first paragraph...right to the last!

Victim or abuser. Which is actually worse? And what if you had to play the role of both? Whatever you do...don’t break the chain!
What would you do if your child was taken? What lengths would you go to get your child back? Could you live with your decisions?

Brilliant, addictive, unputdownable! From start to finish I was also at the mercy of those behind the chain. (Ok...the author!) Couldn’t wait to see how this would play out! Definitely one of my favorite thrillers for 2019! I cannot stop thinking about this one!

Highly recommend for all thriller lovers! Toes tapping! Can’t wait to see what this author comes up with next!

A buddy read with Susanne!

Thank you to NetGalley, Mulholland Books and Adrian McKinty for an ARC to read and review.

McKinty's The Chain is a novel of heart-pounding suspense. I loved the premise from the beginning as this book just sucks you right in. Will definitely recommend it to my customers who love James Patterson and Harlan Coben. A great summer thrill ride!

Ready for summer reading?
May 23, 2019
What are you looking forward to reading this summer? There are so many great books coming out. Here in the Boston area alone, we’ll be celebrating Hallie Ephron’s Careful What You Wish For, (Aug. 6), Hank Phillippi Ryan’s The Murder List(Aug. 20), Julia Henry‘s Tilling the Truth and Edwin Hill‘s The Missing Ones (both Aug. 27). On the cozy side, former Sisters in Crime president Leslie Budewitz has her Chai Another Day coming out June 11, and many others are due soon too. But recently I was asked by an editor to compile a list of summer mysteries and in my desperate attempt to pull together books that weren’t by friends or that haven’t been recently profiled on my own blog, I came up with the following. (Then I found out I had misread the assignment – he wanted books that were already out! Oops!). Anyway, here’s a small sampling of what I’m looking forward to, with an eye to every taste. Please let me know what you’re looking forward to – we’ve got time, at last, to indulge!
1. “One Small Sacrifice,” Hilary Davidson (out June 1)
Author of the Anthony award-winning Lily Moore series launches a new police procedural series with NYPD detective Sheryn Sterling unraveling a complicated possible murder.
2. “Conviction,” Denise Mina, (June 18)
Newly single Anna McDonald tunes into a true-crime podcast for distraction only to realize that she knows what really happened – and she’s involved – in the latest grim psychological suspense from a Scottish master of the genre.
3. “Big Sky, ” Kate Atkinson (June 25)

After an eight-year hiatus, Yorkshire ex-cop turned private investigator Jackson Brodie (with dog) surfaces in a quiet seaside village where a routine domestic case turns into something darker.
4. “Paranoid,” Lisa Jackson, (June 25)
Decades after Rachel Gatson accidentally killed her half-brother, her high school reunion – and a string of new murders – make her doubt her sanity in this bestseller’s latest psychological suspense.

5. “A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder,” Dianne Freeman (June 26) The follow-up to the series’ multiple award-winning debut, this frothy, fun historical cozy once again has the American-born Countess of Harleigh solving a murder in Victorian London’s high society.
6. “The Paper Bark Tree Mystery,” Ovidia Yu (June 27)
The steamy Singaporean summer of 1937 smolders when private detective Su Lin’s ex-boss is murdered in a case involving diamonds, race, and political unrest in this third evocative Crown Colony mystery.
7. “The Whisper Man,” Alex North (June 27)
A widowed father and his young son move into a strange house in a town haunted by the memory of a serial killer in this truly creepy debut thriller.
8. “The Chain,” Adrian McKinty (July 9)
To ransom her kidnapped daughter, a mother must kidnap another child, whose parents must then do the same, in this fast-paced, nightmarish thriller from the award-winning suspense author.
9. “Lady in the Lake,” Laura Lippman (July 23)
Having bolted from a stale marriage in 1966 Baltimore, Maddie Schwarz has transitioned from housewife to crusading journalist, heedlessly seeking the truth about a missing woman in this New York Times-bestselling author’s latest standalone.
10. “The Hounds of Justice,” Claire O’Dell (July 30)
In O’Dell’s second strikingly engaging dystopian Sherlock Holmes pastiche, Dr. Janet Watson once again joins covert agent (and fellow queer black woman) Sara Holmes in infiltrating an extremist group.
11. “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,” Olga Tokarczuk, (Aug. 13)
This Man Booker International Award finalist veers from straight mystery into fantasy as Janina, the local crank in a Polish resort town, takes a break from astrology to investigate a murder.
12. “The Swallows,” Lisa Lutz, (Aug. 13)
Best known for the humorous Spellman Files books, Lutz follows up her thriller “The Passenger” by going very dark with this tale of revenge and secrets at a New England prep school.
13. “Play With Fire,” William Shaw (Aug. 13)
In his fourth series outing, Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen can’t get into the swing of 1969 London, but with his pregnant partner Helen Tozer’s help he tackles the murder of a high-society call girl.
14. “Thirteen,” Steve Cavanaugh (Aug. 13)
Conman-turned-defense attorney Eddie Flynn uses the crooked system against itself, but he’s out manipulated when he’s brought into a Hollywood star’s murder trial in this legal thriller.
15. “The Long Call, ” Anne Cleeves (Sept. 3) With her usual stunningly deft prose, Scottish master Cleeves (“Vera” and “Shetland”) debuts Detective Matthew Venn, who returns to the North Devon evangelical community he once fled when a body washes up on the beach.

The Chain has an interesting premise which is why I wanted to read it. I wasn't expecting anything amazing and out of this world as what happens in the novel isn't very plausible. However, it is written in a way that really gets readers excited and I enjoyed the book for the piece of fiction that it is. I think many readers are going to love it as it is original!

The Chain was a fast-paces, character driven thriller that I read in one sitting. Though I found the first half more compelling than the second, I raced through it to see how it ended.

3.5 Stars.* (rounded down)

A Highly Entertaining Premise that fell a Tad Short on Execution.

After Rachel drops her teenage daughter Kylie off at the bus stop, she gets a call. Kylie has been kidnapped. The caller states that their child has been kidnapped as well. The only way to get Kylie back is to pay a ransom and kidnap someone else, then the caller’s kid will be released and the chain moves forward. Once the family of the child that Rachel kidnaps take someone, Kylie will be released and so on. It’s a vicious circle called “The Chain.”

The premise was F-A-S-C-I-N-A-T-I-N-G (at least to me).. I mean I liked receiving those chain letters as a kid. Not that I ever sent them out. That was way too much work (let’s be serious here)!

Still, I was intrigued by the idea of this and it started off Hella strong. Like Wowza. The characters of Rachel and her daughter Kylie totally pulled me in - the mother who would do anything to get her daughter back and Kylie, who was desperate to get out of the situation she was in? Heck, yes! I am in! But then the story took a bit of a turn in the second half and the story dragged on and sadly, became a bit too technical for me. The ending became obvious fairly quickly, which was also a disappointment. That said, I give the author full credit for the premise and the first half of the story which grabbed my attention immediately.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Mulholland and Adrian McKinty for an ARC of this novel in exchange or an honest review.

Published on NetGalley and Goodreads on 5.19.19.
Will be published on Amazon on 7.9.19

Adrian McGinty has authored the beach read of the year with The Chain! Totally engrossing and will suck you in!

This is an extremely tough review to write because I was dying to read this book. The premise of having a child kidnapped then having to kidnap someone else's child was so outrageous and chilling that I couldn't wait to dive in. Rachel is a mom battling cancer when her 13 year old daughter Kylie is kidnapped. She essentially becomes one of the main protagonists of the story once she's pulled into the chain and must kidnap someone else's child to get Kylie back. Question is does she do this or does she go against the psychos pulling the strings behind the chain? I think the author attempted to make Rachel seem like a tough women with her fighting cancer and her trying to save her daughter on her own (well except when they conveniently made accommodations for her to have someone help) but she really came across as unlikeable and that was a major issue for me because besides maybe her daughter Kylie, I didn't like anyone enough to want to root for them. Then there's the fact that the first half of the book seemed much stronger than the second half. There were large sections of the section half that went on and on with IT technological jargon and concepts and really the author completely lost me with all that and I started skimming. I found the rest dragged and I was underwhelmed by the ending. AS for the villians, if you've read thrillers before you've come across characters similar and way more complex than the ones in this book.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview THE CHAIN by Adrian McKinty.
This book asks the question - what would you do if....
What would you do if one morning you cell phone rang and a stranger told you that your child was kidnapped, that in order to get your child back, you had to kidnap someone's child, pay a ransom, and do things you could not fathom? That is what happens to Rachel, a single mother suffering from cancer. The caller tells her to get 25 thousand dollar and get ready to take someone else's child.
The caller tells Rachel if she calls the police - her child will be killed; if she deviates from the instreuctions, her child will be killed - and if she breaks this "chain" - everyone she knows will be killed.
Rachel knows this is not a joke and so she goes to work - she can't rely on her ex-husband, Marty, so she reaches out to her brother in law, Pete. Rachel and Pete race against time to get a young child back to her family.
But things get out of control - and Rachel knows that THE CHAIN will never let her forget - she is bound to it forever. Rachel's live spins out of control - that is until she starts to take control. But nothing is as it seems and life will never be the same.
Excellent book - 5 stars - fast paced and scary as hell! RECOMMEND.

What a ride! Read this book in a day because I HAD to know what happened. A thrilling nightmare from beginning to end in all the best ways.

I admit my first thought reading the description of this novel was disappointment. Oh, no. A great Irish writer has decided to write a bog-standard American thriller according to formula. But because it was Adrian McKinty, I decided, gingerly, to give it a go.

The setup seems preposterous and belief strains a bit as it's suspended. A woman is contacted by a desperate couple whose child has been kidnapped. They have kidnapped her daughter. She must kidnap another child in order to free both children because it's part of the Chain, and the Chain must not be broken or everyone involved will be hunted down and killed. Oh, and she has to send money, too.

Yeah, I'd go to the cops. But nobody does because they are so terrified for their child's safety. Listen, just roll with it, okay? In the long run it's worth it. The characters are great, the action is great, the concept is ... well, just don't think too hard about it.

Everyone who loves a thriller - think Harlan Coben or Michael Robotham - should read this book. And everyone who has enjoyed Adrian McKinty's books should buy it and turn to the acknowledgements. Then rig up your belief-suspension bridge and enjoy it.

What a terrific weekend read, and a perfect beach book. It’s high-octaine indeed, and I enjoyed every minute. I did feel that the second half stretched credibility but it all worked to keep the pages flying to see how it would work out. I thoroughly enjoyed it.