The Chain

By Adrian McKinty,

Book cover of The Chain

Book description


When a mother is targeted by a dangerous group of masterminds, she must commit a crime to save her kidnapped daughter—or risk losing her forever—in this "propulsive and original" award-winning thriller (Stephen King).

It's something parents do every morning: Rachel Klein drops her daughter at the bus stop and heads…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

5 authors picked The Chain as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book was edge of your seat reading.

The Chain is one of my most recent reads.

I’d categorise it as a dark thriller that created some of the tightest knots in my stomach. The concept alone was enough to generate terror, anxiety, and anger from the first page onward. But anything that involves the endangerment of children does that to me.

A gripping tale that puts the victims, both the kidnapped and the kidnappers, in peril from an unseen syndicate who controls their actions with a phone call.

Very realistic. Very scary.

From Robert's list on suspense to lose yourself in.

This book made me wonder.

Rachel’s daughter has been kidnapped, and to get her back, Rachel must pay a ransom and abduct another child. The kidnapper is another mother whose child has been kidnapped—by someone else whose child has been kidnapped, by someone else whose... Well. You get the idea. As I tore through this novel, I couldn’t help wondering what I would do in that situation. Could I actually kidnap somebody else’s child? I still don’t have an answer, but watching this ingenious plot unfold was a rollercoaster ride I’ll never forget.

From Kimberly's list on children in peril.

If you love The Chain...

Ad

Book cover of What You Made Me Do

What You Made Me Do By Barbara Gayle Austin,

Willem and Jurriaan have a miserable childhood thanks to their cruel, controlling mother—Louisa Veldkamp, a world-renowned pianist. Dad turns a blind eye. One day, Louisa vanishes without a trace during a family vacation.

Adoptee Anneliese Bakker survives a toxic childhood and leaves home, vowing never to return. While searching for…

I had to share my favorite piece of fiction from the past decade, and that’s McKinty’s The Chain. A book I always recommend to folks looking for a high-octane, edge-of-your-seat thriller. Adrian takes the concept of “chain letters” and heightens it into a game of murder and manipulation. Any time a work of fiction makes you feel like you’re watching a movie unfold in your brain, you know it’s working.

Strap yourself in. Ask yourself, what would I do, if this happened to me? Look, if I was tossed into the middle of the zombpocalypse, I already know I’d die off right away, because I can’t run fast. I like to kid myself that if I suddenly became the main character in a thriller, I’d figure out all the tricks and make it to the end, but the truth is, I’m not sure I’d have the guts to do even a single thing the mom in The Chain has to do. This book had me tapping my tablet so fast…

Want books like The Chain?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Chain.

Browse books like The Chain

Book cover of The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
Book cover of The New Wilderness
Book cover of The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of the Lord of the Rings

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,588

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like The Chain, you might also like...

Book cover of Death on a Shetland Longship: The Shetland Sailing Mysteries

Death on a Shetland Longship By Marsali Taylor,

Liveaboard sailor Cass Lynch thinks her big break has finally arrived when she blags her way into skippering a Viking longship for a Hollywood film. However, this means returning to the Shetland Islands, the place she fled as a teenager. When a corpse unexpectedly appears onboard the longship, she can…

Book cover of Through Any Window

Through Any Window By Deb Richardson-Moore,

Riley Masterson has moved to Greenbrier, SC, anxious to escape the chaos that has overwhelmed her life.

Questioned in a murder in Alabama, she has spent eighteen months under suspicion by a sheriff’s office, unable to make an arrest. But things in gentrifying Greenbrier are not as they seem. As…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in childhood, kidnapping, and blackmail?

Childhood 200 books
Kidnapping 119 books
Blackmail 30 books