Miranda Greene may be a broken soul, serving hard time for a brutal crime, but to prison psychologist Frank Lundquist, she is, as ever, his elusive high-school crush. Frank never aspired to be a corrections counselor, but after setbacks in love and work, he has resigned himself to a life of compromises and disappointment. Yet nothing has prepared him for the morning Miranda, his long-ago object of desire—as deeply magnetic as ever—walks into his office at the Milford Basin state prison. Still reeling from the scandal that cost him his Manhattan practice, Frank knows he has an ethical duty to reassign Miranda’s case. But he’s insatiably curious: how did the promising daughter of a congressman end up incarcerated for such a shocking offense? Even more compelling: while Frank remembers every word Miranda ever spoke to him, she doesn’t seem to recognize him at all.

Haunted by childhood tragedy and a family legacy of corrupt moral and political choices, still trying to make sense of the disastrous relationship that led to her downfall, Miranda zeroes in on Frank as a potent hope for her absolution—and maybe even her escape. But their charged reunion will set off an astonishing chain of events with dangerous consequences for both.

With breathtaking pace and mesmerizing style, Debra Jo Immergut lures readers into a wildly suspenseful and psychologically astute exploration of male and female power. The Captives is an intimate and riveting meditation on the knife-edge balances between passion and authority, freedom and peril, and the urges toward both corruption and redemption that dwell in us all.