Bøker av Lawrence Osborne

'Brilliant' SUNDAY TIMES'Compelling and unnerving' SPECTATORThis first collection of stories by Lawrence Osborne perfectly showcases his talent for tension, atmosphere - and characters out of their depthA naïve young linguist sent to the forests of Irian Jaya is manipulated into betraying her mission by a ruthless and disturbed pastor. A deaf girl hired as a maid by a wealthy New York couple turns the tables on her obliviously abusive employers and answers blackmail with blackmail. A psychiatrist treating a girl in rural England becomes ensnared in a love affair that threatens to destroy her career; while a young couple on holiday in Oman accidentally witness a killing, which leads to their being hunted as well. An entomologist at a remote hotel in the Andamans survives a tsunami and uses a dead body to further her study of ants.Collected here for the first time, Lawrence Osborne's stories, like his novels - 'elaborate and intricately plotted dances macabres' (The Times) - feel like nightmares set against calmly and meticulously observed backgrounds. With their nods to Daphne du Maurier and Roald Dahl, these nine long-form stories explore characters lost in the shadowed borders between the mundane, the fantastical and the violence of the natural world.

'Brilliant' SUNDAY TIMES'Compelling and unnerving' SPECTATOR**A NEW STATESMAN Book of the Year 2023**This first collection of stories by Lawrence Osborne perfectly showcases his talent for tension, atmosphere - and characters out of their depthA naïve young linguist sent to the forests of Irian Jaya is manipulated into betraying her mission by a ruthless and disturbed pastor. A deaf girl hired as a maid by a wealthy New York couple turns the tables on her obliviously abusive employers and answers blackmail with blackmail. A psychiatrist treating a girl in rural England becomes ensnared in a love affair that threatens to destroy her career; while a young couple on holiday in Oman accidentally witness a killing, which leads to their being hunted as well. An entomologist at a remote hotel in the Andamans survives a tsunami and uses a dead body to further her study of ants.Collected here for the first time, Lawrence Osborne's stories, like his novels - 'elaborate and intricately plotted dances macabres' (The Times) - feel like nightmares set against calmly and meticulously observed backgrounds. With their nods to Daphne du Maurier and Roald Dahl, these nine long-form stories explore characters lost in the shadowed borders between the mundane, the fantastical and the violence of the natural world.

Private Investigator Philip Marlowe - now in his seventy-second year - has been living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel.Discover the rest of the inimitable Philip Marlowe series - nine classic Chandler adventures, from The Big Sleep to The Long Goodbye, available now in paperback and ebook from Penguin Books.

BOOK OF THE YEAR OBSERVER, MAIL ON SUNDAY'Let's not mince words. This is a great book' Lionel Shriver'An heir to Graham Greene' New York Times Book Review During a white-hot summer on the idyllic Greek island of Hydra, two girls fall into one another's lives to devastating effect.

The Ballad of a Small Player is a sleek, dark-hearted masterpiece: a ghost story set in the land of the living, and a decadent morality tale of a Faustian pact made, not with the devil, but with fortune's fickle hand.

'I am taking a few months off to travel and wander, drinking my way across the Islamic world to see whether I can dry myself out, cure myself of a bout of alcoholic excess.

'A modern Graham Greene' - Sunday TimesDavid and Jo Henniger are on their way to a party at their old friends' home, deep in the Moroccan desert.

Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons - a sex change operation, a night with two prostitutes dressed as nuns, and a stay in a luxury hotel. This title takes us to the place where a blend of ancient Buddhist practice and sexual mores has created a version of modernity only superficially indebted to the West.

Asperger's Syndrome, often characterized as a form of "high-functioning autism," is a poorly defined and little-understood neurological disorder. Some parents hope their child will be the next Glenn Gould or Bill Gates, others worry that their child is abnormal and overreact.