A Smaller Hell by AJ Reid

Tony Black is a lonely thirtysomething, lost in the grey wasteland of modern Britain. His lust for life gone, he sleepwalks to and from work each day, barely even able to conjur a daydream on the journey. Dianne Doyle is an insatiable fortysomething in a playground of corruption, with each game becoming increasingly bizarre. Some would say that she is simply a businesswoman trying to make a success out of her inheritance, but those who know her best know that her interest in profit margins ran out a long time ago. Her pampered, flawless appearance belies a dark history of perversion and violence … and the worst is yet to come for Tony Black: Tanner’s Department Store’s newest employee, and Dianne Doyle’s chosen playmate for her most enigmatic and dangerous game yet. This Christmas, the mundane will be a warm, distant memory for Black, as he finds himself pinned down by Doyle’s trident of blackmail, sex and violence. A Smaller Hell is a tale of collisions between the normal and the perverted; the workaday and the surreal; the logical and the absurd; and of course, good and evil. It will keep you guessing as Black negotiates his way through the darkest corners of this once-splendid shipbuilding town, guided by strange characters and the distant voice of his own morality, right up until the shocking climax at the Christmas party.