Shades of Gray

Set in the heart of sprawling Los Angeles, Shades of Gray is a depressingly intimate, horrifically kaleidoscopic novel about two roommates-one trying desperately to secure a future she desires, as the other dives into a gluttony of excess to avoid the predictable nine-to-five, post-college adult world he's now an unwilling member of-who become entangled in bizarre episodes of sexual oddity, bankrupt morality, and human frailty, each in the vivid backdrop of a city gripped by a serial of a merciless serial killer.

Lindsay, a graduate student and aspiring writer, is in love with her friend Kaspar who may or may not be a murderer, and her roommate Shea, a respected up-and-comer at Industrial Insurance Group, who is gay most of the time, drunk most of the time, high most of the time, and on a constant caroming quest to find his own mystery man, each crossing paths with The Murderer, and each experiencing the darkest side of macabre torment.

Shades of Gray, Christopher Szatkowski's third novel, is the spectacular downfall of slightly regular people.