Vail

In this ''nightmare vision of Britain as a Police State'' (Punch) Jack Vail is drawn into a sinister, scheming world populated by the offbeat, the bizarre and the morally corrupt.

Jack''s wife and daughter are killed in a motorway accident, and now Jack Vail, alone in the world, finds himself in London - but it is not quite the city we know. While his home in the North was stricken with poverty and radiation poisoning, the capital is being consumed by consumerism, media-obsession and moral corruption. Pornography, show business ethics and money-marketing flourish.

Is Vail going to be able to sustain his belief in a universal order while he is being engulfed by the growing anarchy surrounding him?

In his nightmarish vision of a not-too-distant future, award-winning author Trevor Hoyle vividly reflects the grim mood of 1980s Britain.