Clive Barker’s – The Damnation Game is one of those gripping pieces that doesn’t want you to put down. Having only read one other novel by Clive Barker, which was Weave World, I’m finding myself becoming a fan of his work.

The Damnation Game is the story of Martin (Marty) Strauss who is let out of prison early on the proviso that he work for Joseph Whitehead, as his bodyguard. The conditions of the agreement are that Marty is not permitted to leave his estate until the end of his gaol term. Joe Whitehead is a high flying player in the aristocratic corporate world of London. A powerful and wealthy man, who is both worshipped and loathed by his colleagues.

Joe is becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful of his life, hence why he has recruited Marty to be at his side to avert any danger that may arise. On the surface it appears that Joe is suffering from his excess and is just a tad neurotic. But sinister and strange things are beginning to occur. Marty is about to bear witness to the excesses of this seedy over world and is caught in a strange juxtaposition between his newly found freedom in this foreign and unfamiliar world and his past existence in the seedy underworld of Wandsworth prison.

As Joe’s past collides with the present, all out chaos will certainly prevail but will Marty survive? Will Joe survive? Or will the past bring about damnation and end in the depths of Hellfire?