Book review: Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne - end of innocence
Bangkok-based author dubbed 'the new Graham Greene' by one critic has written a moody, vividly atmospheric mystery novel
by Lawrence Osborne
Hogarth
Lawrence Osborne's slow-burn mystery, , follows British innocent-abroad Robert Grieve as his ordered, unremarkable life is transformed during an aimless summer holiday when he crosses the Thai border into Cambodia.
Fortune seems to favour the small-town schoolteacher after he heads to a seedy casino and can't stop winning. He returns to his hotel US$2,000 richer, yet is overwhelmed by a sense of restlessness.
"He was beginning to like the heat and the pace, the day-by-day gentle sinking into his own laziness … he didn't want to go back … There was no future for him in the little village of Elmer … He realised that he was waiting for something different. Beyond his own life there was, without question, a parallel one that he might one day acquire."
Grieve's new-found wealth brings him into contact with a disparate group of "hunters" also looking for something more: a mysterious yet charming American expatriate, Simon Beaucamp, and his local girlfriend, Sothea; a taxi driver, Ouksa, with a switchblade in his pocket; a free-spirited doctor's daughter, Sophal, and a malicious, corrupt policeman, Davuth.
One morning, Grieve wakes up to find himself lying on a small fishing boat travelling along a river, dressed in another man's clothes, with US$100 in his pocket. But his backpack, containing his passport and the money he won, is missing. "Secretly he was thrilled. From now on he could tell himself that he was a victim of circumstance."
