The Chain: The Sum of All Parents Fears

“Number one: you are not the first and you will certainly not be the last. Number two: remember, it’s not about the money—it’s about The Chain.”  Adrian McKinty

The Chain: The Sum of All Parents Fears

By Jim Romano

The Chain is a novel by Northern Irish author, Adrian McKinty.  The novel scared the hell out of me.  Pure and simple.  The events written in The Chain is the sum of all my fears as a parent.  Everyday I worry about the safety of my daughters.  Adding onto my worries about a crazed person with a gun shooting up their school, I also worry about them being kidnapped. I worry about them being sexually abused. I worry about evil being visited upon them.  The Chain brings out how our social media society could be perverted to hunt our children.

This story begins with a kind of botched kidnapping.  A 12-year-old girl is kidnapped at her bus stop.  The kidnapping is a notch in the chain.  The girl’s mother, a cancer patient, must confront her fears and how she will get her daughter back.  First, she needs to kidnap another child to have her daughter released along with paying a hefty ransom.  An evil is perpetrated and turns good people into monsters.  The story revolves around all the bad things a person is willing to undertake to get your child back. 

To get my daughters back, I would do anything.  In my day job working with rare disease families who need treatment and patient assistance, I flippantly say statements such as, “to keep your child alive, a parent would accept money from ISIS or Columbia Drug Cartels.”  To get your child back a parent will lie, cheat, steal and murder if that is what they must do to see their child again.  And that is what the story is about. 

Our reliance with social media—Facebook, Twitter and Instagram—with your photos and whereabouts makes all this happen.  I know I have placed photo after photo on social media.  Could that be used against my family?  The Chain has given me pause. 

The first half of the book is phenomenal.  You are left on the edge of your seat.  The characters are fantastic. The second half is a little slower, dealing with the repercussions of their actions.  The question that is also presented—what will your recovered love one think of you?  I remember a story of a husband and wife in Hungary during the Second World War that a teacher once told my class.  To save her husband from certain death, a Hungarian woman slept with Russian soldiers, but her husband never forgave her.  How will your loved one react? Will they forgive you for becoming a monster? 

If you want a thrilling book, I would pick up a copy of The Chain.  You will not be disappointed. 

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