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jonathan_von 's review for:
The Chain
by Adrian McKinty
The Chain suffers from being a book split in two. The first half is a dementedly entertaining thriller in which a divorced, cancer-surviving, single mother has to rescue her tween daughter from kidnappers not only by paying a ransom, but by kidnapping a child herself AND forcing the other child’s parents to ransom ANOTHER child. It’s a ridiculous and breathless descent into crime and child abduction. It’s really lot of twisted fun and the perspective of the main character is gripping.
But then the second chapter hits and the whole thing screeches to a halt. At just about 50 percent, I actually looked at my phone and wondered how the author was possibly going to sustain the tension. The answer is they do not. I’m convinced the sections were probably not written at the same time, the change in quality is so apparent. It’s like the author had most of one book and it was too short, so the publisher said now give us a bunch of back story and a mystery and a shoot out. It feels like a second book hastily tacked in to the first. It’s not bad, it’s just mediocre. There are a couple of fun moments, some computer hacking, and spends a surprising amount of time on someone trying to kick heroin. It’s meh, but the first half is still a lot of fun, so… you might as well I guess?
Lastly, there is some nice writing here and there. The author tries to speak poetically at times and the protagonist is a philosophy teacher. There’s a little bit of intellectualism that’s nice. And for some reason, there are random HP Lovecraft references. Maybe it’s a New England thing, but I had a big, “huh?” moment whenever the book would mention the town of Innsmouth or the Miskatonic river. Just seems kind of random.
But then the second chapter hits and the whole thing screeches to a halt. At just about 50 percent, I actually looked at my phone and wondered how the author was possibly going to sustain the tension. The answer is they do not. I’m convinced the sections were probably not written at the same time, the change in quality is so apparent. It’s like the author had most of one book and it was too short, so the publisher said now give us a bunch of back story and a mystery and a shoot out. It feels like a second book hastily tacked in to the first. It’s not bad, it’s just mediocre. There are a couple of fun moments, some computer hacking, and spends a surprising amount of time on someone trying to kick heroin. It’s meh, but the first half is still a lot of fun, so… you might as well I guess?
Lastly, there is some nice writing here and there. The author tries to speak poetically at times and the protagonist is a philosophy teacher. There’s a little bit of intellectualism that’s nice. And for some reason, there are random HP Lovecraft references. Maybe it’s a New England thing, but I had a big, “huh?” moment whenever the book would mention the town of Innsmouth or the Miskatonic river. Just seems kind of random.