After a lucrative turn at a Cambodian casino, 28-year-old Englishman Robert Grieve walks away with two grand--a fortune in the Southeast Asian nation--and into a web of danger and deceit. This unexpected windfall drives the narrative in Lawrence Osborne's new novel, Hunters in the Dark, an intriguing story of luck, fate, human nature and colliding cultures.
Word of the winnings pocketed by a foreigner precedes Robert to Battambang in western Cambodia, a destination he chooses on a whim. He crosses paths with motorbike-riding American expat Simon Beaucamp and takes him up on an invitation to be a guest at Simon's home that evening. The next morning, though, Robert wakes up aboard a small boat motoring along a river, driven by a stranger who doesn't speak English. Dressed in Simon's elegant linen attire, Robert is missing everything else.
Making Hunters in the Dark an especially compelling read is the Cambodian setting. The story plays out along dusty, deserted roads, in the dense, steamy jungle, in the shadows of ancient temples and in lively Phnom Penh, a city of possibility and danger. As a visitor in a foreign land, he doesn't understand the nuances of a culture steeped in superstition and the belief that fate and karma dictate lives and actions.
Hunters in the Dark has garnered comparisons to the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith, deservedly so. The twist-filled narrative smolders with an ominous undercurrent, and the wheel of karma keeps on turning, unleashing its powerful forces. --Shannon McKenna Schmidt