The Society of Dirty Hearts — Ben Cheetham

There's a darkness lying just under the surface of Julian Harris's young mind. He has bad dreams. Very bad dreams in which he sees himself rape and murder teenage girls. Sometimes they seem more like visions than dreams. More and more he fears his dreams will spill over into the waking world and he'll become the monster he is in them.

There's a darkness lying just under the surface of Julian Harris's picture-perfect hometown too. A schoolgirl is missing. Julian is convinced there's something sinister behind her disappearance, but the police think otherwise. The girl comes from a bad background. She hung out with petty criminals and junkies. Some people think the town is better off without her.

Julian isn't one of those people. Neither is Mia Bradshaw, a disturbed, self-harming orphan and the best-friend of the missing girl. Drawn to each other by a desire to find out the truth, Julian and Mia form a bond that goes beyond friendship or sexual attraction into something neither of them understands. When Mia goes missing, Julian's desire turns into obsession - an obsession that leads him to a depraved underworld of drugs, prostitution, blackmail and murder headed by a man who seems to have stepped straight out of his nightmares.

Part psychological horror, part crime thriller, The Society Of Dirty Hearts is a novel that will draw you, along with its flawed hero, deeper and deeper into the corrupt depths of a small-town full of dark secrets and darker desires.