237pp; 8pp col photog plates.

Karl Williams was on a dream holiday in Dubai with two English friends, living the high life on the glamorous Gulf. But the dream turned to a nightmare when they were accused of drug dealing, arrested and tortured by police. They were innocent, but the authorities didn’t care. Locked up in Port Rashid, they found themselves in a hellish world where prisoners of all nationalities were crammed into stinking cells, violence could erupt in seconds, and control was in the hands of a few powerful inmates. Unless you knew the right people, you were screwed.

Karl was a survivor, making friends with the local gangsters, Russian Mafia and assorted murderers, drug dealers, fraudsters and hapless innocents he encountered behind bars. But it was hard to stay positive when facing a life sentence or the death penalty … and then he was moved to the notorious Central prison, a terrifying place where murders and rape were common. Would Karl ever get justice?

Raw gripping and at times brutally funny, Killing Time takes you behind the shiny desert paradise to the heart of the real Dubai.