Description

A tense, stunningly well-observed heist novel from ‘the bastard child of Graham Greene and Patrica Highsmith’ (Metro)

Sarah Talbot Jennings, a young American living in New York, has fled to Bangkok to disappear. Armed with a suitcase full of cash, she takes up residence at the Kingdom, a glittering complex slowly sinking into its own twilight. There, against a backdrop of shadowy gossip and intrigue, she is soon drawn into the orbit of the Kingdom’s glamorous ex-pat women. But when political chaos and a frenzied uprising wrack the streets below, and Sarah witnesses something unspeakable, her safe haven begins to feel like a trap.

From a master of atmosphere and suspense comes a brilliantly unsettling story of cruelty and psychological unrest, and an enthralling glimpse into the shadowy crossroads of karma and human greed.

Publisher Review

Showing Osborne at the height of his powers, The Glass Kingdom upends the Western reader's most basic assumptions about the human world . . . stylish and disquieting -- John Gray * New Statesman * Bangkok is the star of this accomplished novel. Its denizens are aliens to themselves, glittering on the horizon of their own lives, moving - restless and rootless and afraid - though a cityscape that has more stories than they know -- Hilary Mantel The author's exceptional descriptive skills fuel an overwhelming sense of menace . . . the next day you will still be thinking of Sarah's fate with horror -- Louise Doughty * New York Times * Osborne's novels are lavishly filmic . . . The setting is luxurious, the lifestyle hedonistic, the climate oppressively hot. Prodigious amounts of alcohol are consumed. As events accelerate towards a violent finale, the reader is kept guessing. How severe will the consequences be for the interloper? Which will prevail, revenge or forgiveness? -- Blake Morrison * London Review of Books * Lawrence Osborne goes from strength to strength. In The Glass Kingdom he once again displays a feel for the Westerner abroad in an alien culture, where misunderstandings can prove deadly. The author has lived for years in Bangkok, whose seediness runs deeper than the superficially icky red light district most foreign writers take on. Great characters, plenty of suspense, and a killer ending -- Lionel Shriver * Evening Standard, Books of the Year *