Hunters in the Dark

Lawrence Osborne is a critically acclaimed novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is the author of eight novels, including Ballad of a Small Player, Beautiful Animals and The Forgiven. His non-fiction ranges from memoir through travelogue to essays, including Bangkok Days, The Naked Tourist and The Wet and the Dry. His novels have been chosen as Books of the Year by the Guardian, the Observer, the Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman, the Daily Mail, The Economist, the New Yorker and the New York Times. The Forgiven was made into a film in 2022 starring Jessica Chastain and Ralph Fiennes and Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton was released on Netflix in 2025.

"Fans of Lawrence Osborne's excellent, sour-tasting novels will recognize several ingredients in this latest... The novel's power lies in Osborne's needling descriptions of hedonism and decay in a country haunted by history, superstition and curdled dreams" -- Claire Allfree, 4 stars Metro "Osborne is definitely still in the game" -- Paul Dunn The Times "In Hunters in the Dark, Osborne has created a wonderful evocation of Cambodia, that most haunted, seductive country - haunted both by the spirits always believed by its people to have inhabited every part of the land and buy the dreadful crimes committed so recently by the Khmer Rouge, who killed a quarter of the population in three years. ... Hunters in the Dark is itself pitilessly good. Those comparisons with Graham Greene aren't even flattering anymore" -- David Sexton Evening Standard "Osborne's brilliance as a travel writer places his web of deceit, greed and need ... in a world conjured up with dazzling immediacy ... Sumptuous and sinister, languorous and tense, this is a novel that gives Osborne's remarkable talents haunting scope" -- Peter Kemp Sunday Times "Edgy and gripping ... Written with unfailing precision and beauty, Hunters in the Dark stakes out territory different to the many writers to whom Osborne has been compared." -- Neel Mukherjee Guardian