'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.

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 *
If the purpose of a novel is to take you away from the everyday and show you something different, then Osborne is succeeding, and handsomely. Hunters in the Dark is a novel of immersion… shaped like a quiet dream. As such, it’s an unqualified success, and I hope it enjoys a wide readership -- Lee Child * New York Times *
Cambodia…comes splendidly to life in Osborne’s prose… This is a tip-top thriller. Osborne knows how to keep the pages turning; he is a name to watch -- Ian Thomson * Independent *
Edgy and gripping … Written with unfailing precision and beauty, Hunters in the Dark stakes out territory different to the many writers to whom Osborne has been compared. -- Neel Mukherjee * Guardian *
Besides being a gripping thriller, it's a fine meditation on luck, fate and chance and a wonderful evocation of Cambodia, a country of ghosts, spirits and shadows -- Sebastian Shakespeare * Daily Mail, Books of the Year *
Fans of Lawrence Osborne’s excellent, sour-tasting novels will recognize several ingredients in this latest… The novel’s power lies in Osborne’s needling descriptions of hedonism and decay in a country haunted by history, superstition and curdled dreams -- Claire Allfree, 4 stars * Metro *
Osborne is definitely still in the game -- Paul Dunn * The Times *
In Hunters in the Dark, Osborne has created a wonderful evocation of Cambodia, that most haunted, seductive country – haunted both by the spirits always believed by its people to have inhabited every part of the land and buy the dreadful crimes committed so recently by the Khmer Rouge, who killed a quarter of the population in three years. … Hunters in the Dark is itself pitilessly good. Those comparisons with Graham Greene aren’t even flattering anymore -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *
Steeped in the menacing, fatalistic atmosphere of a country with a bloody recent past, this is a terrific novel with an ending that is utterly gripping and satisfying * Mail on Sunday *
Hunters in the Dark is Lawrence Osborne’s third strong novel in a row and this rare achievement is made all the more impressive because each of these three novels has improved on the last … The literary thriller is an awkward genre, usually lacking in either thrills or quality of prose, but with Hunters in the Dark, Osborne has proved once again that he can handle both and with aplomb * Sunday Express *

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, Paris Dreambook 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, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2021; Hunters in the Dark will shoot in Cambodia with Aneurin Barnard, Adam Pettyfer and Tzi Ma; and Beautiful Animals is now in production with Amazon. Osborne lives in Bangkok.


www.lawrenceosborne.net