Hassle Castle

By: Martyn Chapman

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Who is buried beneath the badger sett? And what was the heartrending fate of sweet Lorna Doom? Lowry, the tormented and evasive narrator, is drawn back to the grounds of an empty mansion, where six letters: ‘M-O-S-C-O-W’ have been crudely burnt onto an old garden table. It is the abandoned scar of a tragedy that occurred three years before . . . Thirty-four year old Dooster purchases an alluring Playboy style mansion, and his six male friends relish the elicit opportunities presented to them. The house is teasingly named Hassle Castle (‘the Castle’) by a disgruntled girlfriend, and to escape the creeping perils of marriage, babies, and the inevitable changes to their lives, the friends combine outrageous parties with enthralling adventures across the United Kingdom and Europe. But these humorous excursions are hooded by the men’s strained loyalty to their partners, and their guarded and personal relationships with the beautiful, yet malicious Alexis, who has mysteriously disappeared. With family and police searching for her whereabouts, Lowry is haunted by Alexis’s link to the Castle and disturbing memories from his childhood. When one of the group persuades the others to accompany him to Moscow, the friends are sucked inside the menacing atmosphere of this aloof Russian city and become the victims of a devastating event. Returning home, they attempt to rebuild their shattered lives, but the dynamics of the group have fatally changed and the Castle finally reveals its dark and sinister secrets. With the past now sadistically exposed, the friends are swept towards a brutal and shocking retribution.