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The brilliant new novel from Lawrence Osborne - "a modern Graham Greene" (Sunday Times) - author of The Forgiven and The Ballad of a Small Player

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´A modern Graham Greene´ Sunday Times

Robert Grieve - pushing thirty and eager to side-step a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher - decides to go missing.

As he crosses the border from Thailand to Cambodia, he tests the threshold of a new future. And on that first night, a small windfall precipitates a chain of events involving a bag of ´jinxed´ money, a suave American, a corrupt policeman and a rich doctor´s daughter, in which Robert´s life is changed forever.

Alive with malice and grace, this is a taut tale reminiscent of the nightmares of Patricia Highsmith: a story of double identities, and innocence in the midst of evil, from a master of atmosphere and observation.

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"Osborne´s brilliance as a travel writer places his web of deceit, greed and need ... in a world conjured up with dazzling immediacy ... Sumptuous and sinister, languorous and tense, this is a novel that gives Osborne´s remarkable talents haunting scope" Peter Kemp Sunday Times

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Born in England, Lawrence Osborne is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Forgiven, The Ballad of a Small Player, Hunters in the Dark and Beautiful Animals. His non-fiction ranges from memoir through travelogue to essays, including Bangkok Days, Paris Dreambook and The Wet and the Dry. His short story ´Volcano´ was selected for Best American Short Stories 2012, and he has written for the New York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, the New Yorker, Forbes, Harper´s and other publications. He lives in Bangkok.

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