Candleland

A reporter combs London’s underworld in search of a missing addict

A hard-hitting series of anti-corruption articles and a new girlfriend mean that, for the first time since his wife and child were murdered, investigative reporter Stephen Larkin is happy in Newcastle. It’s a shame, then, that his work is about to take him south. A friend of his, police inspector Henry Moir, has lost his youngest daughter, an HIV-positive heroin addict named Karen. Her last known location was London, which Larkin once called home, so Moir asks the reporter to act as tour guide to the capital’s hellish underworld.

They travel south together: a man whose life is coming together and one whose life is fraying apart. Karen lies deep within London’s shadow world. To find her, they must descend to depths from which good men may never return.