AFTER a chance encounter with a stunningly attractive stranger, 25-year-old Allegra Ashe is recruited into Vokoban; a covert government unit that uses a mysterious new law to chase and convict paedophiles. Vokoban needs Allegra because, although she is in

AFTER a chance encounter with a stunningly attractive stranger, 25-year-old Allegra Ashe is recruited into Vokoban; a covert government unit that uses a mysterious new law to chase and convict paedophiles.

Vokoban needs Allegra because, although she is in her mid-20s, she is forever being asked for ID in bars and can pass for a 13-year-old.

Allegra becomes deeply involved with the unit and so begins her descent into the darkness and depravity of the human mind.

Her job is to pretend to be 13 and wait to be sexually abused or raped by suspected paedophile Joseph Drake.

As her life spirals out of control, we find ourselves voyeurs in a twisted world of lust, danger, deceit and revenge.

And when she finally gets out of that world, she is dragged in by the abduction of her 12-year-old niece. Can she hold it together and find the man who violated her and now has Reese?

With several recent high-profile cases of sexual abuse and paedophilia, Child's Play (�7.99, Revenge Ink) taps into a subject that repulses and fascinates in equal measures.

Its descriptions of abuse and torture are pretty graphic and so may upset some readers.

British-Asian author Kia Abdullah has produced a gripping psychological sex-crime thriller, some scenes of which are set around Newham and Redbridge, ending up at Valentines Mansion.

On her website, Adbullah says: "I do not write for fame or fortune. I write to exorcise personal demons, to fulfil a personal passion and to satisfy my readers.

"If a person picks up my book and is compelled to read it and actually enjoys it, then that is enough for me."

- LINDSAY JONES