On Java Road: The bastard child of Graham Greene and Patricia Highsmith METRO

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The tense, atmospheric novel from the critically acclaimed, cult favourite Lawrence Osborne A veteran British journalist living in Hong Kong investigates the disappearance of a student protestor amidst the pro-democracy demonstrations in this unsettling new novel from the acclaimed author of The Forgiven After twenty indolent years as an ex-pat reporter in Hong Kong, Englishman Adrian Gyle has almost nothing to show for it. The party gave no sign of ending- nights burned away in private clubs and restaurants; days were spent on laughably easy assignments. But now the streets are choked with students demanding democratic freedoms, and the old world begins to fall apart. Watching from the skyrises overlooking the protests is Adrian's old friend Jimmy Tang, the scion of a wealthy Hong Kong family, who has begun a reckless affair with Rebecca, a leading pro-democracy protestor, full of idealism and reeking of tear gas. The couple are dancing over the abyss, playing for time, and Adrian is drawn into their clandestine romance with a mixture of complicity and envy. But when Rebecca disappears and Jimmy goes to ground, Adrian unearths the familiar old urge to investigate, and personal loyalties evaporate overnight. Now an unwelcome foreigner in a hostile land, Adrian must reckon with these vanishings as old Hong Kong quietly slips off the stage. Pursuing Rebecca's ghost to Java Road where the city's dead congregate, Adrian re-assembles her final hours - as he struggles to distinguish between delusion and reality. 'Osborne goes from strength to strength' LIONEL SHRIVER 'Osborne handles surface and depth with immense skill, as only great writers can' DEBORAH LEVY, FINANCIAL 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' LEE CHILD, NEW YORK TIMES

Reviews

[A] superbly atmospheric reportage of a place and time... [On Java Road is] his most compulsive yet -- Peter Kemp * Sunday Times *
Marvellously convincing evocations of fractious, tear-gas-canister-strewn Hong Kong... Osborne...presents every country his novels visit clearly, without imposing his own gloss * Literary Review *
In the growing footprint of what he deems "Planet Tourism," his novels have become his radical reworking of travel writing - as sensual, provocative and riveting portraits of lives and places in flux * Washington Post *
Masterly ... This story of moral failings and totalitarian excess is as disturbing as it is irresistible -- Peter Carty * i *
Osborne's whodunnit is wrapped in an atmospheric portrait both of a particular place and time, and of the creation and destruction of a friendship. Highly recommended * Guardian *

Author Bio

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.