London Underground

The year is 1977, and as England goes to the dogs, university student, Julie Kent, reinvents herself as Sterling - an outrageous thieving Goth with a dodgy sex life and an appalling attitude. Over the next two decades she cuts a bloody swathe through London's criminal underworld until she finally ends up on a mortuary slab...but is she really dead?

The social disintegration of the late Twentieth century is mirrored in Sterling's mind - and body - as she sets off on her final mission to avenge her best friend and lover who was brutally murdered by a ruthless gang of underworld assassins. George Brenton, a mortuary assistant, is drawn into her toxic web. Can she save him - and herself?

Ian Bell's take on the Gothic Novel has plenty of ingredients to turn our minds (and stomachs), but as an acute observer of society at all levels he enthrals the reader with an eye for detail, brilliant characterisation - and a sense of the unseen evil lurking in London's dark and dangerous underworld. Miss it at your peril!