'Brilliant' SUNDAY TIMES
'Compelling and unnerving' SPECTATOR

**A NEW STATESMAN Book of the Year 2023**

This first collection of stories by Lawrence Osborne perfectly showcases his talent for tension, atmosphere - and characters out of their depth

A naive young linguist sent to the forests of Irian Jaya is manipulated into betraying her mission by a ruthless and disturbed pastor. A deaf girl hired as a maid by a wealthy New York couple turns the tables on her obliviously abusive employers and answers blackmail with blackmail. A psychiatrist treating a girl in rural England becomes ensnared in a love affair that threatens to destroy her career; while a young couple on holiday in Oman accidentally witness a killing, which leads to their being hunted as well. An entomologist at a remote hotel in the Andamans survives a tsunami and uses a dead body to further her study of ants.

Collected here for the first time, Lawrence Osborne's stories, like his novels - 'elaborate and intricately plotted dances macabres' (The Times) - feel like nightmares set against calmly and meticulously observed backgrounds. With their nods to Daphne du Maurier and Roald Dahl, these nine long-form stories explore characters lost in the shadowed borders between the mundane, the fantastical and the violence of the natural world.

About the Author

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, Beautiful Animals, Only to Sleep: A Philip Marlowe novel (commissioned by the Raymond Chandler estate) and The Glass Kingdom. His non-fiction ranges from memoir through travelogue to essays, including Bangkok Days, The Naked Tourist and The Wet and the Dry. His short story 'Volcano' was selected for Best American Short Stories 2012.

The Forgiven, starring Ralph Fiennes, Matt Smith and Jessica Chastain was released in 2022. Osborne lives in Bangkok.

Reviews
Brilliant... clear but strong, full of mood and meaning -- Bryan Appleyard * SUNDAY TIMES *
Compelling and unnerving -- Emily Rhodes * SPECTATOR *
If you appreciate stories with stings in the tail, you will enjoy this fiendishly cunning new collection... Osborne not only has the knack of keeping readers guessing, but the rarer gift of drawing them into the interior world of his characters * Mail on Sunday *
Graham Greene praised Patricia Highsmith as "the poet of apprehension", and there is something of Highsmith in Osborne's vision of the treacherous uncertainty of human fortunes, but he has a cooler eye. "Ghost"...is one of the most unsettling pieces of writing I've ever read * NEW STATESMAN, *Books of the Year* *
This is stylish, subversive fiction from a writer at the top of his game * NEW STATESMAN, *Books of the Year* *



Book Information
ISBN 9781781090831
Author Lawrence Osborne
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Hogarth
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 346g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 25mm