The Captive
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- 99,00 kr
Publisher Description
A darkly comedic, cinematic horror about a revolutionary group who kidnap an heiress, only to discover she's pregnant with the antichrist, and she's about to give birth.
From Ned Beauman, the Man Booker Prize longlisted author of The Teleportation Accident and Clarke Award winning author of Venomous Lumpsucker. Perfect for fans of Grady Hendrix and Joe Hill.
Underground revolutionary group, The Nail, and their newest member, Luke have kidnapped 23-year-old heiress Adeline Woolsaw, whose wealthy parents run the Woolsaw Group, a vast outsourcing company. They run everything from prisons and hospitals to military bases – quietly suffocating the country with the help of powerful friends in government.
The Nail's plan: to use the kidnapping to draw attention to the Woolsaw Group and their terrible practices. But with Adeline bundled into their van, The Nail discover two things. The first is that she's just about to give birth. And the second is that this isn't a normal baby. In fact, it has devastating supernatural powers. Because the father of this baby wasn't a man, it was… something else. Something that her parents make human sacrifices to on an altar in the basement of their Highgate mansion. And all this time the Woolsaw Group has been preparing the ground for the Woolsaws' real aim: an infernal new kingdom that will rise with Adeline's son sitting on its throne.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A kidnapping scheme goes horribly awry in this witty supernatural thrill ride, the first horror outing from Burgoyne (The Teleportation Accident, written as Ned Beauman). Anticapitalist collective the Nail is intent on exposing the perfidy of the Woolsaw Group, "the largest public service outsourcing company in the UK," whom they blame for increasing the misery of the populace. New recruit Luke has an especially personal grievance: his sister died in a Woolsaw Group–controlled mental health institution. The Nail plots to abduct Adeline Woolsaw, heir to her family's empire, and hold her for ransom, not realizing that she is heavily pregnant. Mere hours after the kidnapping, Adeline gives birth to Percy, an infant with unpredictable and uncanny powers. She's willing to collaborate with the Nail to keep Percy from her parents, who have diabolical plans for their grandchild and plenty of resources to track him down. Burgoyne keeps the action brisk and the repartee sharp in the ensuing game of cat-and-mouse, as Luke and his Nail-mates realize the potential to weaponize Percy's talents and the Woolsaws resort to increasingly desperate stratagems that invite scathing satire of their plutocratic overreach. This refreshingly modern spin on the infernal child theme deserves to stand beside such genre classics as Rosemary's Baby and The Omen.
