You know when a book catches you for the idea? That’s what happened to me with A Corrente. When I found out what it was about I was really shocked, because I thought it was great. However, as I mulled over the subject, I kept thinking about several “problems” that the idea would have and I became curious about how the author would solve them. So I finally decided to read it and today I bring you what I found!
In this story we have Rachel, a woman who is trying to rebuild her life after surviving cancer and a divorce. She is about to start teaching philosophy when her world crumbles again. Her 13-year-old daughter, Kylie, is kidnapped on her way to school and the kidnappers give her the following guidelines for her to get her daughter back:
- 1 – Pay the ransom by depositing an amount of bitcoins in an account on the “Dark Web”;
- 2 – Kidnapping another person who is important enough for someone to care about saving them too (within current rules and not calling the police);
- 3 – Keep the kidnapped person in captivity until someone pays for their ransom and kidnaps another person to continue the chain of crimes;
Rachel is totally bewildered by what she needs to do. She fears calling the police, as her daughter is in the hands of another mother who also had her son kidnapped and wouldn’t have mercy on killing Kylie to save her own son. Rachel has no one to turn to, her ex-husband is unreachable, and even if he wasn’t, he couldn’t be trusted as he would surely call the police. So she began to do what they asked, until the moment that Pete, an ex-military man, brother of Rachel’s ex-husband and who is a very close uncle of Kylie, enters the play to help her kidnap someone else. As if all that wasn’t enough, Rachel discovers that her cancer has returned.
My considerations
When I saw the proposal for the book I found it very impressive. The idea of kidnapping someone and forcing those who care about that person to kidnap others on a chain, while the organizer of it all only has the job of collecting the money and inspecting that no one wants to break the rules is pretty shocking. The problem is that it is an idea that leaves room for many holes if the narrative is not handled carefully. And that’s what worried me when I picked it up to read.
For example, the first thing I asked myself was: when Rachel kidnaps another child, and Kylie’s kidnapper gets her child back, what’s to stop her from calling the police, returning Kylie to Rachel, and breaking the chain? For this, the author used the resource of giving the organizer/owner of the chain “unlimited power”, which makes the victims afraid of breaking the rules and end up suffering the consequences of being persecuted and murdered. Another problem that victims would have is that, at this point, where the current had a certain vulnerability, they had already become kidnappers. As much as they were forced into such an act, they would be condemned for it. The author was very smart in building the narrative.
There was only one problem with this book which was responsible for giving it four stars instead of five. It is divided into two parts. The first, narrating Rachel’s story is perfect, nothing to complain about. However, the second part, where the post-kidnapping and the life of the chain’s creators is narrated, spoiled it a bit for me. Part of my heartbreak may be my own fault, as I’m very used to stories where the culprit/murderer is already introduced to us from the beginning, not a character introduced in the middle/end. And that’s what happened in this book. Although the creator of the chain participated anonymously in the first part, it is only in the second that she appears and we know more about her. I don’t particularly like this format, but that’s my taste, not a problem per se.
Still about the story being separated into two parts, I didn’t like the format. It seems that the author wrote the first part as a short story and then wrote the second part to put an end to the organization of the chain, taking advantage of the characters from the first story. This breakdown was kind of frustrating for me, as the first part was so mind-blowing. I think that if the two parts were one, but more merged, it would have worked better. For example, introduce the teacher who wanted to break the chain earlier into the story and start narrating the past of the chain’s creators earlier as well. So that the book became one thing. In reality, I don’t even know if this format that I suggest would be better, I just imagine that it would be.
I highly recommend it for anyone who likes thrillers, as the author manages to leave us with our hearts in our hands all the time. It’s a plot that you can’t think “I would do such a thing in her place”, because it’s very difficult to imagine your own reaction in such an absurd situation. After all, it’s not just about saving a person dear to you, it’s about destroy the lives of other innocent people and still do it smartly and calculatingly so as not to get caught by the police. I definitely wouldn’t be able to do such things.
