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Reviewed by Ephantus Gold

“They thought they were the captors. They were wrong.” This single line captures everything that makes “The Captive” by Kit Burgoyne, a wild, intelligent and deeply unsettling ride through power, rebellion and the terrifying idea that the real dangers are never the ones we expect. In the first pages, a kidnapping unfolds with heart-pounding precision on a posh London street. It quickly becomes clear that the pregnant twenty-three-year-old, Adeline Woolsaw, daughter of an ultra-wealthy family, snatched by a group of activists—is not the helpless victim anyone anticipated. She’s composed, calculating, and somehow… strangely eager to be taken. As the group hides out in an abandoned school and tries to hold their operation together, weird and catastrophic events tear the outside world apart: a sudden hailstorm that feels almost apocalyptic, bizarre chemical rain, and a chilling sense that something bigger and more unnatural is happening just beyond reach.  Purchase Here.

These escalating events aren’t just background noise, rather, they press in on the characters, shaping every decision they make, which is an element that makes this novel truly shine. The characters feel strikingly real, especially Luke—the nervous first-timer who’s clearly in way over his head, wrestling with guilt, fear, and a creeping sense of disillusionment; Cam, the hardened leader, who clings stubbornly to the plan even as the world around them starts to twist out of shape; and Rosa, fierce and sharp-edged, who can’t quite hide the cracks in her confidence. But it’s Adeline who quietly steals the show. You can almost feel her eyes on them—watching, calculating, maybe even pulling the strings—in a rare, slow-burning psychological battle that keeps tightening its grip.

What makes the book so powerful is that Burgoyne doesn’t just ask “Will they get caught?”—he asks deeper, more disturbing questions: What happens when the victim doesn’t want to be saved? What if the people fighting for a better world are just as lost as the ones they oppose? And when everything crumbles, who do we become?

Burgoyne’s writing is razor-sharp and intelligent. He captures both the sweaty, claustrophobic fear inside the van during the abduction and the wider, surreal horror of a London seemingly breaking apart. Every chapter ends on a note that demands the reader to turn the page, hungry for answers that only get more complicated the deeper they go. From the very first page, this novel is fast, dark and tense. Readers will appreciate how it weaves in social commentary without feeling preachy. Thoughtout, it keeps the prose tight, vivid, and often darkly funny. The pacing is relentless but never rushed, and there’s a poetic touch to some of the more surreal moments—especially during the violent, dreamlike hailstorm scene. The dialogue feels authentic, as if one is eavesdropping, and even the supporting characters leap off the page, flaws and eccentricities intact.

Ultimately, Kit Burgoyne’s “The Captive” is not simply another clever, tense thriller; it plunges headlong into fanaticism, power, and that uneasy place where you begin to question if the good men and the evil guys are actually all that different. It’s tense, it’s thought-provoking, and once it gets its hooks in you, it doesn’t let go. If you like thrillers that aren’t afraid to get messy—or lean into the strange—you’ll be thinking about this one long after you turn the last page.