Hunters in the Dark

“Elegant, stylish and ambiguous . . . Dramatic irony, used sharply by Osborne, keeps the narrative edgy and gripping. . . . Written with unfailing precision and beauty.”—Neel Mukherjee, Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Lives of Others

“Osborne’s Cambodia is rendered beautifully. . . . 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, The New York Times Book Review

“Osborne is a master at creating a subtle but unmistakable sense of impending doom. . . . An elegant, dark, well-put together novel . . . The book races towards a surprising ending—one that I did not see coming.”—NPR

“Lush and brooding . . . Osborne creates an atmosphere dripping with torrential rains and intrigue. Cambodia comes off as a dangerously seductive playground, plying visitors with the sultry false promise of uncomplicated abandon among the Buddhist ruins, all under the bemused gaze of the local, ethnic Khmers who know better. The risk, of course, is that there may be no easy exit from the dizzying whirlwind of escape.”—Seattle Times

“A hauntingly beautiful story of greed, passion and, most importantly, karma.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Osborne recalls Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham with this densely atmospheric novel of foreigners and locals navigating fortune and fate among the lush rice fields of Cambodia.”—National Geographic Traveler

“Complex in plot yet simple and intense in style, Osborne’s narrative takes us into an Asian heart of darkness.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Osborne successfully demonstrates the inextricably linked relationship between introspection and change. A deeply penetrating meditation on the human experience of belonging.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Hunters in the Dark is a strange and heady novel sure to engage armchair travelers.”—Booklist

“Sumptuous and sinister, languorous and tense, this is a novel that gives Osborne’s remarkable talents haunting scope.”—The Sunday Times

“[A] dark, teasing, elegantly written book.”—Financial Times

“The novel generates a palpable dread. . . . Hunters in the Dark is a tip-top thriller. Osborne knows how to keep the pages turning.”—The Independent

“Compelling . . . Meticulously plotted, each chance encounter, however fleeting or coincidental, advents a delicate shift in the balance of the building blocks of the narrative. . . . With its emphasis on double identities and double-crossing, it’s inevitable that this time Patricia Highsmith will be a point of comparison. It’s an apt one, but I was also reminded of Daphne du Maurier’s 1957 novel The Scapegoat.”—The National

“Osborne has created a wonderful evocation of Cambodia, that most haunted, seductive country. . . . Pitilessly good.”—London Evening Standard

“The ugliness of the cruelty of that time contrasts with the beauty of the language and landscape. . . . The writing is richly sensuous, and this atmospheric novel is filled with scenes that sear themselves into the memory. . . . In dazzling, luminous prose, Osborne subverts expectations, so that it’s in the darkest places that we glimpse sudden moments of light. . . . It’s with expert control of the narrative here that he captures a life adrift.”—Anita Sethi, The Guardian

“Excellent . . . Grappling with manifold questions about identity and the tragic futility of material aspirations in a ruthless, brittle world, this novel draws you into a sun-struck realm where the survival of the fittest is more predicated by chance and where violence is a sudden, opportunistic enterprise.” —New Statesman