Compulsion is a horror novel written by Shaun Hutson

Shaun Hutson

Shaun Hutson is a writer of novels including horror novels and dark urban thrillers. A native of Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire, England, Hutson now lives and writes in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire....

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Plot summary

A gang of teenage youngsters is running riot on the streets. Responsible for a number of burglaries and car thefts, the police are at their wits' end trying to put a stop to the gang's activities. Terror and hatred have become part of everyday life for local residents and, just when it seems things cannot get any worse, the gang targets Shelby House - an old people's home. Supervisor Veronica Porter, her two staff and the nine elderly residents become the gang's most vulnerable victims yet as the thugs conduct a hate campaign against them, sending abusive mail, daubing graffiti

Graffiti

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....

 on walls and shattering windows. The intimidation escalates until Veronica's own father is dragged into the scene of terror when, disturbing some of the gang members burgling his house he is put into a coma

Coma

In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...

. But enough is enough. The senior citizens of Shelby House decide to take the law into their own hands and fight back.

External links

• The official Shaun Hutson website, run by a fan with the input of the author himself