Audiobook Review
The Captive (2025)
by Kit Burgoyne
Kit Burgoyne is the horror nom de plume for science fiction author Ned Beauman. I read Beauman's 2022 novel, Venomous Lumpsucker back in 2023 and it inspired a pretty thorough review. Beauman remained in my mind as a solid example of a genre writer with literary fiction reach, so I was interested when I read that he'd launched a horror alter ego for his new novel, The Captive, which has been described as, "A Rosemay's Baby for the late capitalism period." In other words, he wrote an A24 movie. So be it! I'll take an update on Rosemary's Baby any day of the week. Within the horror genre, I am particularly interested in the detailed depiction of the craft and practice of horror-genre devil worshippers. Devil worship is such an interesting inversion of conventional religious practices, and I like to see how different authors depict the practices of the various versions.
Here, Burgoyne/Beauman links the devil to the UK equivalent of the GEO/Wackenhut group- a privately owned corporation that runs quasi-public institutions like prisons, jails and mental hospitals. As someone who visits privately run prisons on the regular, including immigration facilities, I can testify that Beauman's take is a little hysterical. His merry band of anarchist-terrorists who put the plot into motion seem to have extremely fuzzy ideologies but are firmly committed to putting the plot into motion by concerted criminal action.
The Captive was a fun audiobook; I'd recommend it as a good format here.
I'm thinking Jenny Ortega as the lead.
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