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Captives
Detective Inspector Frank Gregson must investigate a series of savage and apparently motiveless murders. Moreover, they are carbon copies of killings committed years earlier - committed by men currently incarcerated in one of Britain's maximum security prisons. How could this be?
434 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
8 people are currently reading
223 people want to read
About the author
Shaun Hutson
113 books536 followersBritish horror novelist, including horror and urban thriller novels.
His novella Slugs was made into a movie, although Hutson didn't like the movie. He also appeared in two horror movies himself.
Hutson is a Liverpool F.C. fan.
His novella Slugs was made into a movie, although Hutson didn't like the movie. He also appeared in two horror movies himself.
Hutson is a Liverpool F.C. fan.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 22, 2025
Fun pulpy thriller from Hutson, but one that took quite some time getting into the groove if you will. This starts with a bang, with a guy robbing a bank, shooting people left and right, and then suiciding with the cops in hot pursuit. WTF? The guy is burned almost to ash, so identifying him becomes rather difficult. The main protagonist, DI Frank Gregson, investigates the case but comes up with zero.
After the explosive start, Captives becomes rather disjointed, with numerous flashbacks to some mental hospital. Obviously, the two story arcs come together sometime, but it definitely takes some time. Meanwhile, we follow the exploits of Gregson on the case, and he is truly one major asshat, verbally abusing his wife right and left, keeping his partner out of the loop, etc. What is going on with Gregson?
Another related storyline concerns a 'clip joint', e.g., a nudie bar where women fondle each other on a bed in the center of the place while johns sit around in chairs watching. Lovely. Hutson takes us on a sleazy dive into London's sex parlors here and the organized 'gangs' that control it. Again, how does this relate to the tale? The focus here is on a guy who runs the clip joint, who is in love with one of the 'strippers' but she only has eyes for his boss, another sleazy underground figure.
Overall, a fun read, with lots of trashy sex and blood as you would expect from Hutson, but a rather puzzling one. This read more like a police procedural than Hutson's typical outré and macabre horror tales but the style remains the same. 2.5 trashy stars, rounding up for the twisty denouement.
After the explosive start, Captives becomes rather disjointed, with numerous flashbacks to some mental hospital. Obviously, the two story arcs come together sometime, but it definitely takes some time. Meanwhile, we follow the exploits of Gregson on the case, and he is truly one major asshat, verbally abusing his wife right and left, keeping his partner out of the loop, etc. What is going on with Gregson?
Another related storyline concerns a 'clip joint', e.g., a nudie bar where women fondle each other on a bed in the center of the place while johns sit around in chairs watching. Lovely. Hutson takes us on a sleazy dive into London's sex parlors here and the organized 'gangs' that control it. Again, how does this relate to the tale? The focus here is on a guy who runs the clip joint, who is in love with one of the 'strippers' but she only has eyes for his boss, another sleazy underground figure.
Overall, a fun read, with lots of trashy sex and blood as you would expect from Hutson, but a rather puzzling one. This read more like a police procedural than Hutson's typical outré and macabre horror tales but the style remains the same. 2.5 trashy stars, rounding up for the twisty denouement.
October 1, 2018
What an orgy of violence and bloodshed! First you see some gruesome murders in London. But who are the perpetrators? Why do they go down in flames. The traces go back to an overcrowded prison where a Dr Dexter has special treatments for chosen inmates. Then we have a love story between Carol and Jim. But what about Plummer, his boss? And there is have Gregson, a DI who snaps, snarls and rasps to solve the mysterious murder cases. is there more to him? What is his role in this book noir? How does the story end? Well, you have to find it out by reading this page turning compelling dark masterpiece. This books hits you like a bullet. You won't turn it down until you've finished it. A clear recommendation. The end also has some interesting twists...
October 11, 2020
Slower to get going than most Hutsons, and sloppier in its interweaving of the various plot strands, ‘Captives’ nonetheless delivers in its big, gory, unapologetic and violent set pieces. A work of the basest exploitation, to be sure, but there’s a visceral energy and unpretentious honesty to what Hutson does.
May 5, 2016
Retro action thriller, following the story of a cop who is desperate to find out why 3 seemingly linked and senseless crimes carried out by three separate men appear to be the work of criminals who were sentenced and locked up years ago and are still supposed to be languishing in prison.
September 22, 2015
This is a fast paced book that follows two separate strands which come together in an epic finale combining conspiracy, mafia-style crime, obsession and a crazed doctor's desire to fix his daughter and those in his charge (unfortunetly he runs a mental institution including the criminally insane). Each of the characters are what you would expect from the roles they've been given but a few have a little something extra that is hinted at throughout before jumping out onto the page pushing the tension and pace of the story up even further leading to the gory, chilling and inevitable finale. Overall a pretty damn good read.
October 1, 2012
I love Shaun's work, it's gritty, punchy and graphically scary. I loved the pulp feel of it in my younger years.
May 16, 2024
Reading a Shaun Hutson novel can be quite an invigorating experience going in, as you can never be entirely sure what you’re going to get out of it. He has written some fast-paced gorefests that fly past and others where things drag on, sub-ploys make no sense and the whole thing seems to be a little bit of a mess without a coherent story or decent characters. Sadly, “Captives” is one of the latter and whilst it has some decent moments, in one of his longer novels, they’re all too infrequent.
There are murders being committed in London which are confusing the Police. They involve high degrees of violence, but have generally ended with the perpetrator committing themselves to a fiery end. The issue confronting the Police is that the methods and the bodies belong to murderers who had been caught and sentenced to prison and who supposedly died there. All the perpetrators seem to be suffering from a brain tumour and a strange piece of electronics is found attached to their brains.
In the “Loveshow” bar in Soho, James Scott has issues of a far more mundane kind. He needs to keep up with all the jobs that come with running a sex club, as well as keeping the punters from being a little too free with the girls who work there. His girlfriend is becoming more distant and seems to want more for herself, as well as from him, but Scott is trying to keep his boss happy, without knowing that his girlfriend is also keeping his boss happy, whilst he is looking to steal a large shipment of drugs from a rival group.
This was one of the first Hutson novels I read and it made me a fan of his as a person, as it was immediately obvious that he likes the same kind of music I do. The girls in the club dance to some classic rock – although they would all have been fairly recent songs at the time the novel was written – and I could sing along to most of the lyrics he quoted from the songs. This was by far the most enjoyable part of the novel for me and when I later found he was a fan of the same football team as I am, I discovered that as an author, I preferred him as a person.
The rest of “Captives” contains many of the failings I’ve since come across in Hutson’s work, in that the long sub-plot involving James Scott drags on throughout the novel and only crosses paths with the main point of the novel very late on. But even the main point of the novel contains one decent idea, which is surrounded by so much padding around prison reform and politics that it gets buried and the best parts of the genesis of the novel end up being shoved off to one side and smothered in words, leaving “Captives” as one of Hutson’s longest novels, but with the least amount of actual story.
What has saved many of Hutson’s novels is that they are written in short chapters and so move along very quickly. Whilst that is still the case here, the sheer volume of words, most of which turn out to be padding around the actual plot rather than plot itself, means the novel drags on more than is usual for Hutson’s work. It is still fairly readable, but by the time you have slogged your way through something that only occasionally touches on the kernel of the idea, you end up wondering why you bothered.
There are murders being committed in London which are confusing the Police. They involve high degrees of violence, but have generally ended with the perpetrator committing themselves to a fiery end. The issue confronting the Police is that the methods and the bodies belong to murderers who had been caught and sentenced to prison and who supposedly died there. All the perpetrators seem to be suffering from a brain tumour and a strange piece of electronics is found attached to their brains.
In the “Loveshow” bar in Soho, James Scott has issues of a far more mundane kind. He needs to keep up with all the jobs that come with running a sex club, as well as keeping the punters from being a little too free with the girls who work there. His girlfriend is becoming more distant and seems to want more for herself, as well as from him, but Scott is trying to keep his boss happy, without knowing that his girlfriend is also keeping his boss happy, whilst he is looking to steal a large shipment of drugs from a rival group.
This was one of the first Hutson novels I read and it made me a fan of his as a person, as it was immediately obvious that he likes the same kind of music I do. The girls in the club dance to some classic rock – although they would all have been fairly recent songs at the time the novel was written – and I could sing along to most of the lyrics he quoted from the songs. This was by far the most enjoyable part of the novel for me and when I later found he was a fan of the same football team as I am, I discovered that as an author, I preferred him as a person.
The rest of “Captives” contains many of the failings I’ve since come across in Hutson’s work, in that the long sub-plot involving James Scott drags on throughout the novel and only crosses paths with the main point of the novel very late on. But even the main point of the novel contains one decent idea, which is surrounded by so much padding around prison reform and politics that it gets buried and the best parts of the genesis of the novel end up being shoved off to one side and smothered in words, leaving “Captives” as one of Hutson’s longest novels, but with the least amount of actual story.
What has saved many of Hutson’s novels is that they are written in short chapters and so move along very quickly. Whilst that is still the case here, the sheer volume of words, most of which turn out to be padding around the actual plot rather than plot itself, means the novel drags on more than is usual for Hutson’s work. It is still fairly readable, but by the time you have slogged your way through something that only occasionally touches on the kernel of the idea, you end up wondering why you bothered.
December 20, 2024
Wow, what a ride! Shaun Hutson does what he does best, delivers a dark, twisted, and totally gripping story. Captives is packed with gritty action, sinister characters, and moments where I literally had to pause and say, “Wait, did that just happen?!”
The story kicks off with an eerie vibe that just snowballs into full-blown chaos. Without giving away too much, let’s just say the opening scene sets the tone perfectly. 👀 Hutson doesn’t pull any punches, and the body count? HIGH.
The intertwining plots between a brutal gang war and a disturbing pharmaceutical conspiracy were genius. And can we talk about the moment [spoiler alert] when that “medical breakthrough” turns out to be way more horrific than anyone expected? Those descriptions of the “side effects” were straight out of a nightmare.
😱 Also, the fate of poor Carrie... devastating but oh-so-Hutson.
I loved how dark this book was, but I’ll admit, it’s not for the faint of heart. The pacing was relentless, and while it might have been a bit too much carnage for some readers, I couldn’t look away. 😅
If you’re into gritty horror that doesn’t shy away from gore, you NEED this book on your shelf. Just be ready for a few sleepless nights.
#ShaunHutson #Captives #HorrorReads #GoreGalore #DarkFiction
📖☠️💉
The story kicks off with an eerie vibe that just snowballs into full-blown chaos. Without giving away too much, let’s just say the opening scene sets the tone perfectly. 👀 Hutson doesn’t pull any punches, and the body count? HIGH.
The intertwining plots between a brutal gang war and a disturbing pharmaceutical conspiracy were genius. And can we talk about the moment [spoiler alert] when that “medical breakthrough” turns out to be way more horrific than anyone expected? Those descriptions of the “side effects” were straight out of a nightmare.
😱 Also, the fate of poor Carrie... devastating but oh-so-Hutson.
I loved how dark this book was, but I’ll admit, it’s not for the faint of heart. The pacing was relentless, and while it might have been a bit too much carnage for some readers, I couldn’t look away. 😅
If you’re into gritty horror that doesn’t shy away from gore, you NEED this book on your shelf. Just be ready for a few sleepless nights.
#ShaunHutson #Captives #HorrorReads #GoreGalore #DarkFiction
📖☠️💉
July 21, 2025
Mostly OK. The writing got into trouble in places (geezers of liquid spouting, instead of geysers, and similar stupid replacements) and could have used a good editor, but mostly it held up. The characters were bad caricatures but it's a book from the 90s, so not much is to be expected there.
The last 30 pages or so contained some of the dumbest nonsense I've ever read. The author could have stopped with one of the stories and been fine, instead he chose to tank his own ending in spectacular fashion, taking it from a half reasonable finish to an eye rolling, barely suitable for b-movie horror close.
The last 30 pages or so contained some of the dumbest nonsense I've ever read. The author could have stopped with one of the stories and been fine, instead he chose to tank his own ending in spectacular fashion, taking it from a half reasonable finish to an eye rolling, barely suitable for b-movie horror close.
November 13, 2025
There are two stories in this book running parallel to each other and you just have to wait until one of them turns and smashes into the other. The first story has a man running a strip/sex club for an underworld boss. He's in love with one of the girls, but she's not returning his feelings, and he has suspicions on why not.
The second has a copper investigating violent crimes that seem to be copycats from years before. It also has the prison where those men were locked up, but they seem to be dead. This tale is the more violent and messy of the two. Of course, when they meet, it all flows together.
The second has a copper investigating violent crimes that seem to be copycats from years before. It also has the prison where those men were locked up, but they seem to be dead. This tale is the more violent and messy of the two. Of course, when they meet, it all flows together.
November 4, 2019
I'm not really sure if this was good or bad if I'm honest. It was like one massive blood bath which I guess was quite good, but then it kept jumping from character to character without explaining how they were connected, obviously that all became clear in the end. And the actual ending was definitely not the outcome that I wanted. The writing was good but I didn't really like any of the characters at all, I didn't really care about what happened to any of them. It did keep me wanting to turn the page to find out what the ending would be though, so I guess that's a good thing.
May 17, 2020
Probably my fault for not paying enough attention to the reviews for this book. From the front and back cover, I went into this thinking it was going to be the usual Hutson supernatural horror story, in the vein of The Hidden or Shocker, but it turns out this is just an action thriller about a regular old serial killer.
Not that you can't write a really excellent story on that topic like Michael Slade's Headhunter, but it just threw me off guard with its mundanity, especially compared to some of his gorier, weirder works.
Not that you can't write a really excellent story on that topic like Michael Slade's Headhunter, but it just threw me off guard with its mundanity, especially compared to some of his gorier, weirder works.
January 16, 2024
the overall story was pretty great, and i enjoyed how it all ties together in the end, not forgetting that final "OHH!" moment. i felt like i could see what i was reading play out in my head like an action movie, pretty clearly.
the low rating is mainly for the repition of words in short spaces, the punctuation errors making me triple read to understand, and how it seemed to only have a few different ways to finish after a dialogue was spoken (i.e, "x wanted to know").
the low rating is mainly for the repition of words in short spaces, the punctuation errors making me triple read to understand, and how it seemed to only have a few different ways to finish after a dialogue was spoken (i.e, "x wanted to know").
April 7, 2024
Dont understand fully why this book is called captives but it doesn't matter this was damn good. The twist at the end was very good.
This is my 5th shaun Hutson book and i havent been disappointed. Like in this book you follow different characters stories in various chapters. Shaun has knack of connecting them all together and even though i did guess how the story was going to go it was still enjoyable!!
This is my 5th shaun Hutson book and i havent been disappointed. Like in this book you follow different characters stories in various chapters. Shaun has knack of connecting them all together and even though i did guess how the story was going to go it was still enjoyable!!
December 22, 2024
Shaun Hutson’s Captives is a dark, gripping read that pulls no punches. From start to finish, it’s packed with tension, horror, and the kind of gritty storytelling Hutson is known for. The story dives deep into some really disturbing themes, and the graphic imagery isn’t for everyone, but it keeps you hooked all the way through.
The characters feel raw and real, even when they’re flawed or hard to like, which makes the story hit even harder. The pacing is relentless, and there’s never a dull moment—it’s one of those books you struggle to put down.
If you’re into intense, gritty horror and don’t mind things getting a bit graphic, Captives is well worth a read.
The characters feel raw and real, even when they’re flawed or hard to like, which makes the story hit even harder. The pacing is relentless, and there’s never a dull moment—it’s one of those books you struggle to put down.
If you’re into intense, gritty horror and don’t mind things getting a bit graphic, Captives is well worth a read.
December 24, 2022
Cheesy gory fun.
Read
December 31, 2022Ugly, unsatisfying crap.
My first (and last) Hutson.
My first (and last) Hutson.
February 9, 2012
Not one of his best, very quick and disappointing ending. The usual stuff about a bent copper
, strip club , gangland tale mixed together with a crazy doctor experimenting on convicts. The usual Shaun Hutson gore and sex but not much of a storyline to go on.
Read on kindle edition
, strip club , gangland tale mixed together with a crazy doctor experimenting on convicts. The usual Shaun Hutson gore and sex but not much of a storyline to go on.
Read on kindle edition
August 13, 2012
There is something curiously compulsive about Shaun Hutson novels. However gory it gets you just have to keep on reading. This one is typical of his output.Enjoyed the read but not worth re-reading so it's back to the charity shop for this one.
September 18, 2013
Perfect for any Shaun Hutson fan.
July 31, 2014
First read from Shaun Hutson. Great start into the splatter punk genre.
June 18, 2016
#24 One star. Bloody awful (no pun intended). That is all.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews