When Charlie and I were young, we played a game called Destroyers . . . We were sharpening our instincts, jettisoning attachments. We were honing strategies for survival ...

Ian Bledsoe is on the run, broke and humiliated, fleeing the emotional and financial fallout of his father's death. His childhood friend Charlie - rich, exuberant and basking in life on the Greek island of Patmos - is his last hope.

At first, Patmos is like a dream - sun-soaked days on Charlie's yacht and the reappearance of a girlfriend from Ian's past - and Charlie readily offers the lifeline he desperately needs. But, like Charlie himself, this beautiful island conceals a darkness beneath. When he vanishes leaving behind his murky business affairs, Ian finds himself caught in a terrifying labyrinth of deceits. As boys, the pair played a game called Destroyers - a game, he now realizes, they may never have stopped playing.