Lawrence Osborne

We've long been a fan of Osborne’s menacingly dark literary thrillers. His latest is set in Hong Kong, where Adrian Gyle, a boozy, veteran ex-pat British journalist, finds himself becoming increasingly embroiled in the love affair between his old pal from Cambridge days, the philandering Jimmy Tang, a playboy and scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, and Rebecca, an attractive, young pro-democracy protestor. When Rebecca suddenly vanishes and Jimmy goes quiet, Adrian wonders what’s going on and his investigative instincts kick in. Could one of the floating corpses in the harbour, supposedly suicides, be Rebecca's, and could Jimmy be involved? Against a backdrop of riot police and tear-gas bombs, seedy nightclubs and martinis on yachts, Gyle must decide what discovering the truth might cost him, and if he’s prepared to pay the price. Osborne has written another wonderfully atmospheric, compulsive page turner that shimmers with malice while also being his most political book yet.