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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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THE GLASS KINGDOM

Lawrence Osborne

The Glass Kingdom is a brilliantly unsettling story of civil and psychological unrest, fate and karma, in the furthest reaches of the world and in the human psyche.

In a luxury high rise in Bangkok, a young American falls in with a seductive circle of ex-pat women as the city roils in political chaos below. Leaving New York for the heat, humidity and anonymity of Bangkok, Sarah arrives in Thailand with the sole desire to lose herself, a stranger in a strange land. Yet she also leaves behind a complicated past, and a deception she holds close to her chest. Taking up a lease at a high-end apartment complex called The Kingdom, she finds herself drawn into the close-knit social circle of three very different, but equally mysterious, ex-pat women: Ximena, the Chilean chef, creator of fine and delicious culinary creations; Nat, the British hotelier with the curious husband and even more curious maid; and the alluring Mali, who takes Sarah into her glittering world with all its shadow-play.

As attempted coups wrack the city and political chaos erupts on the streets below, so do tensions within the gilded world of this compound, The Kingdom. When a tenant in the building goes missing, and the disorder of the outside world begins to invade The Kingdom, the residents are thrown into unprecedented terror and suspicion. The question Sarah must now ask herself is: Who can she trust?

Lawrence Osborne is the author of six critically acclaimed novels, including The Forgiven, Hunters in the Dark, and Beautiful Animals, as well as six books of nonfiction, including Bangkok Days. His most recent novel, Only to Sleep: A Philip Marlowe Novel, was nominated for an Edgar Award and named as a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. He has led a nomadic life, living in Paris, New York, Mexico, and Istanbul, and he currently resides in Bangkok.

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Book Published 2020-08-18 by Hogarth

Comments

Oozing menace, Osborne's compelling novel is wonderfully atmospheric and deeply macabre.

A compulsively readable novelist of lean, prowling prose with a menacing, dark side.

... masterfully drawn, mesmerizing novel. ... A seductive, darkly atmospheric thriller with a spine-tingling climax.

Showing Osborne at the height of his powers, The Glass Kingdom upends the Western reader's most basic assumptions about the human world.Slyly, almost imperceptibly, but quite relentlessly, Osborne subverts crime fiction as a genre and the world-view of its readers. As you turn the pages of this stylish and disquieting tale, you will find your fictions of choice and autonomy crumbling along with the Kingdom.

Bangkok is the exotic setting for this thriller about a woman who flees New York City with some stolen money. She begins a new life in the Thai capital where she becomes part of the community in a glass-faced high rise filled with other expatriates. Her solace is soon shattered when she becomes embroiled in political unrest and a military coup. Read more...

Osborne evokes the exciting, tawdry, thrumming danger of Bangkok in this riveting tale of a woman whose poor choices, lack of will, and desperation lead to disaster. There's an ominous sense of foreboding from the first page ... A gripping read.

Bangkok is the star of this accomplished novel. Its denizens are aliens to themselves, glittering on the horizon of their own lives, moving - restless and rootless and afraid - though a cityscape that has more stories than they know.

Osborne is among the finest pure writers at work today... In his newest, The Glass Kingdom... a mysterious fugitive settles into uncanny, luxurious surroundings in an Asian city. Here, the city is Bangkok, and the fugitive in question is a young American woman with a mysterious source of funds and a new address in a tony Bangkok apartment building. She soon taps into an odd community of expats from across the globe, all confined to the building's louche surroundings, with too many secrets to count among them. Read more...

Osborne is among the finest pure writers at work today, and at this point he's more than earned the Graham Greene comparisons. In his newest, The Glass Kingdom, he returns to a scenario that will enthuse admirers of his The Ballad of a Small Player: a mysterious fugitive settles into uncanny, luxurious surroundings in an Asian city. Here, the city is Bangkok, and the fugitive in question is a young American woman with a mysterious source of funds and a new address in a tony Bangkok apartment building. She soon taps into an odd community of expats from across the globe, all confined to the building's louche surroundings, with too many secrets to count among them. Read more...

Dutch: Prometheus ; Spanish and Catalan: Sureda57

He's been called "the best novelist you've never heard of" and the heir to Graham Greene. But with the release of his latest novel, Lawrence Osborne cements his legacy as a master of the 21st-century literary thriller. Read more...

[E]xceptional descriptive skills fuel an overwhelming sense of menace: It is no mean feat to make the ending of a novel truly shocking . . . the next day you will still be thinking of Sarah's fate with horror. Read more...