A police helicopter hovers above Hackney. Snipers surround a house under siege. Fascinated, Nelson Millar edges forward to watch the advance of the negotiator: a robot, uncannily tall and serene, designed to empathise with the despair that has turned a bitter executive into a corner gunman. But the robot is too late; an explosion engulfs the house. As Nelson watches the burning machine burst onto the street, he realises that the future has arrived on his doorstep.

Nelson is unwittingly working on a project that threatens the very nature of democracy - the simulation of a town and its citizens in an attempt to create the ultimate focus group. Meanwhile, his friend Raymond is hired to assist the mysterious Red Men, digital copies of the rich and powerful whose vile appetites and hatred for real life soon lead to murder.

A literary thriller for an out-of-control age, THE RED MEN captures the shocking, baffling quality of life in our new century, a battle in which even ordinary men like Nelson must take sides to survive.