Roxanne Payne is the star of the Tournament, a game show that allows its audience of millions to feel what the contestants feel. Only Roxanne doesn't feel much since the teenage trauma of her mother's suicide, which is what makes her the Queen of Pain. Retired Met police detective, Tom Barlow, is hired to keep her alive when death threats turn real, and in the process, Roxanne becomes his deadly obsession. But is he willing to risk everything to keep her alive?Set in a dystopian near future, Tom Barlow's life is split apart as he tracks killers, protects the woman he loves and re-discovers the man he used to be. Across eighteen days - in a parallel story to the one depicted in Dead Poor - Tom's life becomes entwined with that of Alexandria (Lex) de Montford, in a world of deceit, double-cross and death. Is she angel or demon? Is Tom all that he pretends to be? And will Roxanne find freedom or death as she approaches the final show?