'A modern Graham Greene'Sunday Times

Robert Grieve pushing thirty and eager to side-step a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher decides to go missing.

As he crosses the border from Thailand to Cambodia, he tests the threshold of a new future. And on that first night, a small windfall precipitates a chain of events involving a bag of jinxed money, a suave American, a corrupt policeman and a rich doctors daughter, in which Roberts life is changed forever.

Alive with malice and grace, this is a taut tale reminiscent of the nightmares of Patricia Highsmith: a story of double identities, and innocence in the midst of evil, from a master of atmosphere and observation.

Born in England,Lawrence Osborneis the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Forgiven, The Ballad of a Small Player, Hunters in the Dark andBeautiful Animals.His non-fiction ranges from memoir through travelogue to essays, includingBangkok Days,Paris DreambookandThe Wet and the Dry.His short story 'Volcano' was selected forBest American Short Stories 2012,and he has writtenfor theNew York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler,theNew Yorker, Forbes, Harpersand other publications. He lives in Bangkok.