The Experiment

by Barbara Kyle

A concentration camp, a doctor's cruel face, and death... Movie stunt woman Alana Marks never experienced any of these ordeals from decades ago, but somehow she has horrifying memories of them all.

Giving birth in wartime to a daughter she never knew, Alana's gypsy mother was forced to serve as a test subject for inhuman scientific research. Since then, the survivors and their children have been hunted down and murdered, one by one.

Now it's Alana's turn to die. As a killer emerges from the shadows, she and the son she must protect have only one chance: to use their gypsy heritage and her allies within that fierce-hearted community. Yet even if she survives, she must still confront the terrible legacy of The Experiment.

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction

301 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 15, 2011

About the author

Thanks for visiting!

Here’s a little about me. Before becoming an author, I enjoyed a twenty-year acting career playing Shakespearean heroines on stage, leading roles in daytime TV dramas, and characters in Disney made-for-TV movies. It felt like a natural extension of my acting to create characters for fiction, and I hope you'll enjoy my novels. Over half a million copies have been sold worldwide.

My seven-book Thornleigh Saga series is set in 16th-century England and follows a middle-class family’s rise through three generations and three tumultuous Tudor reigns. ("Riveting Tudor drama" - USA Today). I’m also the author of acclaimed thrillers.

My new novel, THE DEADLY TRADE, is a murder mystery. I hope you’ll love it!

As a writing mentor I’ve launched many writers on the path to published success. My video course YOUR PATH TO WRITING A PAGE-TURNER shows how to craft a book that excites publishers and thrills readers. It's a Udemy Bestseller! See: https://www.udemy.com/course/your-pat...

My husband and I live in Guelph, a university city in southern Ontario where we enjoy its riverside walks, vibrant arts community, and good-neighborliness.

Happy reading!

Barbara Kyle

P.S. Follow me on Instagram @BarbaraKyleAuthor

Reviews

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an all-engrossing read! This fast-paced story leaves me feeling quite divided. Beautifully and tightly structured, the novel flowed brilliantly to its near fairy tale finale. While my interest was wholly engaged throughout, the behavior of the characters in the first half of the book made me feel disgust. As the book starts, Liv Gardner, an executive for Falcon Oil is spying in an effort to catch a saboteur. The company is at the brink of bankruptcy; personally, Liv is almost broke. Liv also has deep concerns about her mentally challenged younger sister. She can no longer afford the private institution and must care for Chris, along with her numerous other responsibilities – not always an easy task, even though Chris is one of the few main characters I genuinely liked until much later in the book. Bottom line, I was mightily disturbed by events, actions and conversations during the first half of the book. The author lets the reader see both sides of the nasty controversy. I personally strongly dislike, lies, subterfuge, and the general sense of unrestrained, out-right wrongness. I hate having my belief in the idea of a quintessential right and wrong shattered – yet this book managed to do that.

Tom is a man fighting back against injustice. He’s an intelligent man fighting against overwhelming odds. Falcon oil provides good-paying jobs for the community. A small tight-knit group who is overwhelmingly thankful for the jobs and prosperity they enjoy.

Falcon Oil must stop the terrorist who is waging such a war on them. Time is rapidly running out, and short-cuts will be taken to get production back on schedule and reassure antsy investors. Events spiral out of control – Terrorist or victim? The answer becomes more and more muddied until hatred and chance coincide resulting in a final, devastating act on a rainy night.

The latter part of the book deals with the aftermath. Lies are uncovered; the whole ugly mess is finally exposed. I relished the unfolding events, my mind happy that truth, integrity, and honesty can finally be used to scour off the black crud of deceit that clung to Liv and tarnished so many others, as well. I reveled in the reclamation of sanity and the inexorable challenges of righting grievous wrongs.

This book stirred my emotions, ultimately forcing me to question myself while pondering some serious ecological issues. What is the price we must pay for prosperity? What is my price? This fictionalized account of an actual true story is a thrilling journey that both entertains and educates. Outstanding!

[Jaidis Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entrapped by Barbara Kyle is the thrilling tale about the lengths people will go to in order to preserve the most important things in their lives. What things are considered important enough to risk everything? Family and friends? Business and financial success? Maybe even love? Either way, when you have two groups waging war against each other, sacrifices have to be made.

Olivia had everything she dreamed of. After having a not so happy childhood, Liv is given the opportunity of a life time when she goes into a business partnership with brothers Mickey and Paul. She is currently CEO of the successful Falcon oil company and things can only go up. So when someone starts sabotaging their company, she makes it her mission to find out who is responsible. Going undercover was easy but what she learned in the process may change her outlook on life.

Tom Wainwright is just a man who wants to be left alone to tend his farm and raise his daughter. So when sour gas threatens his livestock causing numerous problems, he sets out to protect his land and everything his family has worked to achieve. After being rejected by all formal means, Tom takes matters into his own hands, using his hate as a driving force. Will his hate consume him before it is too late or will his enemy be a beacon of hope?

Barbara Kyle has written a story that will keep you reading until the end. Since true events were used for inspiration, it is hard not to feel for the characters in this story and it is sure to make you think about both sides involved. As mentioned in the book, everyone has a price, and reading Entrapped is sure to make you stop and think about what your price might be.

[Charissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book on a blog review, and love its cover. It was a fast-paced suspense set in the wide open lands of Alberta, Canada where an oil company's drill sites are being sabotaged. Liv and Mickey, President and VP of Falcon Oil go there to trap the saboteur, who they believe is Tom Wainwright, a local farmer whose wife died from a sour gas leak near his property. The plot is very intense and surprising, with twists right up to the end. I liked it and was intrigued by what I learned about the gas industry there. Well done novel (but it has a few foul words thrown in, so beware if that offends you).

[Ted Macaluso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Treachery, love and exciting plot twists

Entrapped is a romantic thriller set in the farmland of Alberta, Canada. Oil developers are souring the land, someone is blowing up rigs, and a female oil executive goes undercover to catch him...and finds more than she expected.

[Glenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love how Barbara Kyle moved the book along leaving the reader wanting more stories of Tom, Molly, Chris and Livvy. Beautiful country up there.

[P Bernhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Kyle penned a writing instruction book "Page Turner." Based on Entrapped, aspiring writers should read it. She certainly knows how to write a page-turner. Her female protagonist enters one dangerous situation after another in Canadian oil country. Her company is being sabotaged by an assailant known to all in the town, but no one can catch him. Her job is to find incriminating evidence. The author puts her in several untenable positions that requires ingenuity, stealth, and plain luck to get her out of them safely. There always seems to be a twist or a turn that deters the reader from guessing the ending. The story morphs from a thriller to a mystery and delivers in both genres.
If you are not yet a fan of Barbara Kyle, I highly recommend Entrapped as one to start with. You shouldn't be disappointed.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever read a book that you got to the end and wanted to cry….. because it was over?
That was Entrapped.
Barbara Kyle just went straight to my favorite author’s list.
I have never read any of her other novels, but they are on my TBR list now. From looking through her book list, I was surprised to see she typically writes historical novels. I expected the rest of her novels to be modern day too. Lucky me, I love historical settings also.
Entrapped is definitely not your typical romance novel, lots of mystery, lots of action, and very fast. Not short, fast. I could not put it down. I started reading it after taking all the kids to school and just finished it. Work to do? To bad, I had a book I was completely engrossed in. Now it’s done. I’m not bitter, I promise. It’s my own fault for being a fast reader. I’ll never learn how to stretch out an awesome book. When I get into one, I just have to keep going and going and going and going, until I’m done, then I’m sad it’s over.
You fall for the characters, Liv, Tom, Molly, Chris. I especially loved Molly’s interactions with Liv. Kids have this way of knowing what a person is like. I just wanted to scream at Liv, how can you not see the kind of man he is buy looking at his interactions with his daughter.
But, then again, Tom wasn’t perfect. He had his own demons.
Your heart breaks for Tom though, and for his daughter, when you get into his story, why he is doing what he is doing, what exactly happened to his wife.
And the gas problem. I know we need natural gas, I know we need oil, but in this book, Barbara highlights exactly why we need to find other solutions for our energy problems. (No, she doesn’t preach at you, this is definitely a situation that can occur and has occurred.) Along with being sad because I want a sequel now (please? There has to be a way!), it left me wanting to do more to find a way to deal with this problem. Read the book, you’ll see what I mean. You will feel the same way when you hit that 100% mark on your Kindle .
In Entrapped, none of the main players are perfect, all of them make mistakes, big mistakes, but the question is, can they work past those problems (lies, deception, murder, etc) to get back to where they need to be.

[Stephen Best · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while an author emerges who doesn't play by the rules. They make them. Such an author is Barbara Kyle. The Experiment lays waste to our most basic notions of "right" and "wrong", and "good" and "evil".

And, yet these compelling ideas don't intrude on our comfortable world views until sometime after we put The Experiment aside, and the adrenaline lets our brain relax and think--and think deeply--about what we've experienced. And, the ideas, as they emerge and flower in our minds, shock.

A long time speculative/science fiction reader, I'd given up on a genre now a bloated mess of spectacle, hack, cliché, and stereotypes, and too often devoid of themes or ideas worthy of the names. Soap operas in space or fantasy worlds, but pure soap nonetheless. Adventures in plot, sure, but none in ideas--or real speculation.

I don't read speculative or science fiction for "richly imagined worlds" and "feelings in space", I read it for the speculation. Yes, thrill me. Yes, make me turn the page. Yes, entertain me. But for God's sake, make me think and wonder.

I wondered after finishing The Experiment: Was Nazi experimenter Dr. Viktor Schiller wrong to track down and murder the people who escaped his lab? Thirty years after WWII, was Schiller's final target for assassination, Alana Marks, right to have children? What can the answer be when you're forced to consider what it means when "evil" might be right, and "good" wrong?

So much for writing that follows the rules.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Entrapped' is a very enjoyable book for several reasons.


At the beginning of the book, you are plunged into the story with Olivia Gardner, Liv for short is driving her sister, Chris on a mission to do something, but what. We don't really know which side of environmental conversory.


Slowly the book leaks out the information that her sister used be taken care of by the Willows Institution. So Liv is now taking of Chris herself because she can no longer afford the cost.

Liv is ambition driven and smart while sister has problems with relating to people but relates fine with animals.

Liv's boyfriend calls the shots for Falcon Energy, but there are relationships by blood and marriage that tangle up situation.

[Florence Osmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a well written book, had good character development and an interesting plot line. It was fast-paced, held my attention, and the author wrote great descriptions. What I didn’t like about it was that unless the protagonist is a villain, I believe he/she should be at least somewhat likable. This protagonist shamelessly deceived and used many people, was underhanded, and dishonest. The only thing to like about her was she looked after her mentally challenged sister instead of putting her in an institution. In the end, the author tried to redeem the protagonist and make readers feel sorry for her, but it was a weak attempt (in my opinion). What saved this book for me was that the author claimed it was based on facts of actual incidents related to sour gas production in Canada.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book of Ms. Kyle’s that I’ve read, and once again, I was taken for a page-turning ride. The author has a knack for creating nuanced and three-dimensional characters.

In “The Experiment”, readers will follow along with Alana Marks, a young stunt woman with a complicated family and genetic history, due to the medical experimentation conducted on her mother by Nazis in a World War II concentration camp. As with other Barbara Kyle novels, the research is detailed, and the reader comes away not only with an entertaining read but knowledge as well.

For readers who enjoy well-plotted thrillers with sharp characters, I highly recommend “The Experiment.”

[Eric Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Entrapped Kyle gives us the feel of both those suffering due to sour gas and the depradations of the oil industry and the struggle of said industry to bring their products to market.

The story is fast-paced, very readable, enlightening and reminiscent of real events in Alberta where the sabotage of pipelines occurred.

Warning: it contains overly graphic sex scenes.

[Nicole Gerrand · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting book well written and whilst the endive s satisfactory not all the loose Ed s were neatly tied up which increased the enjoyment and my overall enjoyment with the book. I had to suspend my medical knowledge to accept the book's main premise but wha followed was a well tol and riveting story

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absorbing thriller that pits oil company against Alberta farmer. The characters are rich and fully developed, and the setting is so beautifully described, you'll feel as though you just spent time in Alberta. Furthermore, "Entrapped" is fast-paced and well-researched, so not only will you be entertained, you will learn something in the process.

[Stephen Best · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful read. I'm hooked on books that have something important to explore, and have characters--antagonists and protagonists--that are neither all good or all evil. Entrapped is one of those too rare examples where "story"--and a great one at that--is used to reveal truths of import.

[Summer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good storyline, a little predictable in places, a little crude on other places. I probably wouldn't recommend it to a friend, but it was ok.