Imagine your child was kidnapped and to secure his/her release, you had to kidnap another child. Could you do it? This quite delicious thriller drags some extremely ugly ethical dilemmas into the light, and probes the largely unexamined places in our souls where the darker side of parental love lies. McKinty is a master manipulator, taking his protagonist Rachel, an intelligent, capable, fallible parent most of us can relate to, and adeptly turning the screws on her, tighter and tighter. The reader cannot help but put her/himself into Rachel’s position. Could you kidnap a stranger’s child? Yes? And if you were eventually ordered to kill that child to save the life of your own child, could you do that? Hmmmm……
The beauty of The Chain of parents kidnapping other children to get their own child released is that it rolls on relentlessly and secretly, with its creators calmly collecting ransoms and issuing instructions to frantic, desperate parents, day after day. The occasional bloodbath is easily covered up. But none of those affected by The Chain ever quite get over the trauma of it, even if they get their child back. The parents and the children can never speak of it, not to the police or even a counsellor, or The Chain will utilise one of the many desperate parents at its disposal to eliminate the entire family. Rachel, however, sees what the trauma has done to her daughter and has a hard time accepting The Chain is unbreakable.
Hats off to McKinty. I admired his Sean Duffy series, set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, but this stand alone thriller is even better. It’s perfect for a long flight or bus ride so long as your kids are right there beside you, with their seatbelts securely fastened.
