Clive Barker – The Damnation Game

Clive Barker – The Damnation Game (Sphere, 1986)

Cover illustration by Steve Crisp

Blurb:

`IT WAS AN ODD DISEASE. ITS SYMPTOMS WERE LIKE INFATUATION – PALPITATIONS, SLEEPLESSNESS. ITS ONLY CERTAIN CURE,
DEATH…’

Chance had ruled Marty Strauss’ life for as long as he could remember. Now at last luck was turning his way.
Parolled from prison, he becomes bodyguard to Joseph Whitehead, one of the richest men in Europe.
But Whitehead has also played with chance – an ancient game which gave him vast power and wealth, in exchange for his immortal soul.

Now the forces he played against are back to claim what’s theirs. Terrifying forces, with the power to raise the dead; and Marty is trapped between his human masters and Hell itself, with just one last, desperate game left to play …

I think Clive Barker is so good that l am almost literally tongue-tied  – Stephen King
‘Clive Barker writes about horrors most of us would scarcely dare imagine’ – Ramsey Campbell
`The most impressive first novel I’ve read for a long, long time. Touches of sheer brilliance throughout ‘ – James Herbert