On Java Road, Lawrence Osborne
On Java Road, Lawrence Osborne
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

On Java Road

Author: Lawrence Osborne

Narrator: Michael Obiora

Unabridged: 7 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/02/2022


Synopsis

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A veteran journalist in Hong Kong investigates the disappearance of a student protester in this “sensual, provocative, and riveting” (The Washington Post) novel from the celebrated author of The Forgiven—now a major motion picture starring Jessica Chastain and Ralph Fiennes.
 
“Osborne is a startlingly good observer of privilege, noting the rites and rituals of the upper classes with unerring precision and an undercurrent of malice.”—Katie Kitamura, The New York Times Book Review, on Beautiful Animals
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, CrimeReads

After two decades as a journalist in Hong Kong, ex-pat Englishman Adrian Gyle is ready to turn his back on the city he knew so well. But as Hong Kong erupts in violence with pro-democracy demonstrations hitting ever closer to home, could this be the final assignment Gyle was looking for? 

Watching from the skyrises is his old friend Jimmy Tang, the scion of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. Through him Gyle uncovers an intriguing lead: the mysterious Rebecca, a student involved in the protests, and the latest of his Jimmy’s reckless dalliances. But when Rebecca goes missing and Jimmy hides, it rekindles in Gyle an old urge to investigate. 

Piecing together Rebecca’s final days and hours, Gyle must tread carefully through a volatile world of friendship and betrayal. Vividly capturing a city on the brink, On Java Road tells the gripping story of a man between the fault lines of old worlds and new orders in pursuit of the truth.

About Lawrence Osborne

Lawrence Osborne is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Forgiven, The Ballad of a Small Player, and Hunters in the Dark, and of six books of nonfiction. His short story "Volcano" was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2012, and he has written for the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler, Forbes, Harper's, and other publications. He lives in Bangkok.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on January 21, 2023

On Java Road is just the type of dangerous and compelling mystery I was searching for. With the atmospheric streets of Hong Kong as its backdrop, I was fully immersed in this time and place. It’s a slower burn, developing layer by analytical layer, with stunning writing. What an experience reading O......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on September 07, 2022

From its outset” On Java Road” reeks of danger and an ominous sense of disquiet. “ In fact, at the beginning of that summer, when the disturbances had first erupted, I felt as though I were being woken from a deep and meaningless sleep.The city I had grown used to was shattered the first moment I saw......more

Goodreads review by switterbug (Betsey) on July 29, 2022

There’s no Lawrence Osborne book that I didn’t absolutely love, and this one is no exception. His writing is urbane, mercurial, and atmospheric—compellingly noir. As a British ex-pat residing in Bangkok, Osborne’s Asian settings for his novels are enveloping and alluring. His characters are typicall......more

Goodreads review by Kasa on July 04, 2022

Lawrence Osborne once again inhabits the mantle of Graham Greene. On Java Road has more than the usual infusion of historical interest against observance of the current condition, in this case, the state of Hong Kong on the 25th anniversary of the handover which has caused disruption and citywide un......more

Goodreads review by Chris on August 30, 2022

No one else writes “thrillers” as languid as Lawrence Osborne’s. His novels tend to be leisurely, slow-burn mysteries that could be mistaken for impeccably observed travel memoirs, except for the fact that usually there’s a dead body that needs hiding, finding or explaining. This one is set in Hong......more


Quotes

On Java Road evokes the themes and tropes of other classic writers, with echoes of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Graham Greene’s The Third Man. Mr. Osborne turns those references upside-down, subverting expectations of characters’ behavior and story resolution. . . . Those receptive to its elegant writing and intelligent pleasures will be richly rewarded.”The Wall Street Journal

“To open a new Lawrence Osborne book is to enter a maze of thrills from which there is no exit other than to finish the book in one sitting.”—Molly Young, The New York Times

“Shades of Graham Greene and Patricia Highsmith fall across [Osborne’s] colorful pages. Like both, he has a nomadic imagination strongly responsive to the lure of the foreign and enthralled by duplicity, mistrust, and betrayal. Like Greene, he favors down-at-heel figures who have a kind of shabby integrity. Like Highsmith, he is fascinated by glamorously amoral sociopaths. . . . His most compulsive [novel] yet.”Sunday Times (London)
 
“[Osborne writes] sensual, provocative, and riveting portraits of lives and places in flux. . . . [His] recurring focus on expats and foreign landscapes has drawn comparisons to Graham Greene and Paul Bowles, but Osborne’s subject is not the postwar period; it’s the globalized, post-9/11 present.”The Washington Post

“Osborne is the bard of modern-day expat noir, and in On Java Road he’s outdone himself, packing the usual preoccupations (estrangement, existential ennui, spiritual restlessness) in unceasingly compelling surroundings: Hong Kong in tumult . . . [bringing] together a story of privilege, wealth, passion, and loyalty, while also providing incisive cultural insights and full-blooded characters. Osborne’s prose is as precise and observant as ever, and On Java Road is a novel that will leave readers shaken long after they’ve finished reading.”CrimeReads

“This winning mystery from Osborne . . . makes a city beset by unrest, countered by harsh repression, feel palpable, and the dynamic between two college friends of different socioeconomic backgrounds will remind many of Brideshead Revisited. Those patient enough to wait for the mystery plotline to kick in will be rewarded.”Publishers Weekly

“The book is like a whodunit turned inside out. . . . Hong Kong comes fiercely alive on the page, and Osborne’s command of complex history, geography, and politics (and poetry) is nuanced and sure-handed. . . . Moody and compelling.”Kirkus Reviews

“Osborne is an ambitious novelist, and this is more than just a story about courage in Hong Kong. . . . Democracy and freedom of the press require courage. Does Adrian have that courage? Do we? Osborne is too clever a writer to reach a conclusion, but the overall effect of this timely, elegantly written novel is unsettling and concerning.”The Spectator (UK)

"Sure to be dripping with an eerie atmosphere and peculiar twists.”Fodors