Set in contemporary, recession gripped Britain, a left-leaning young Oxford academic and his barrister girlfriend take an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis. What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to...

As a drug-fuelled teenage tearaway, Kaz Phelps took the rap for her little brother, Joey, over a bungled armed robbery, and went to jail. Six years later she's released on licence. Clean and sober - and driven by a secret passion for Helen, her lawyer - Kaz wants to escape the violence and abuse of her Essex gangster family. Joey is now a charming, calculating and cold psychopath. He worships the ground his sister walks on and he's desperate to get...