On Java Road
‘The bastard child of Graham Greene and Patricia Highsmith’ METRO
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- €10.99
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- €10.99
Publisher Description
A veteran British journalist living in Hong Kong investigates the disappearance of a student protestor amidst the pro-democracy demonstrations in this unsettling new novel from the acclaimed author of The Forgiven
After twenty years as an ex-pat reporter in Hong Kong, Adrian Gyle has almost nothing to show for it. But now the streets are choked with students demanding democratic freedoms, and the old world is beginning to fall apart.
Adrian's old friend Jimmy Tang, the scion of a wealthy Hong Kong family, has begun a reckless affair with Rebecca, a leading pro-democracy protestor. But when Rebecca disappears and Jimmy goes to ground, Adrian unearths the familiar old urge to investigate. Pursuing Rebecca's ghost to Java Road where the city's dead congregate, Adrian re-assembles her final hours - as he struggles to distinguish between delusion and reality.
'Osborne's whodunnit is wrapped in an atmospheric portrait both of a particular place and time, and of the creation and destruction of a friendship. Highly recommended' GUARDIAN
'Osborne goes from strength to strength' LIONEL SHRIVER
'Osborne handles surface and depth with immense skill, as only great writers can' DEBORAH LEVY, FINANCIAL TIMES
'If the purpose of a novel is to take you away from the everyday and show you something different, then Osborne is succeeding, and handsomely' LEE CHILD, NEW YORK TIMES
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This winning mystery from Osborne (Only to Sleep: A Philip Marlowe Novel) centers on Adrian Gyle, an English journalist who, after two decades living and working in Hong Kong, has reconciled himself to his career having plateaued and to being known "vaguely as a writer of something or other, and a fairly infamous glutton, but little more than that." Adrian flashes back to memories of the beginning and development of his closest and longest relationship. While at Clare College, Cambridge, he became close with Jimmy Tang, whose family was among Hong Kong's wealthiest and most influential. Their paths cross again when, during demonstrations against Beijing's policies, one of the protestors, Rebecca To, a student to whom Jimmy once introduced Adrian, disappears. With foul play suspected, Adrian turns detective to try to learn Rebecca's fate. 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.
