When Lawrence Osborne approaches the Novelty it is always with the intention of bringing his characters closer to extremes, at the very edge of the abyss where the most disturbing currents blow. The funny thing is that we can find those who get scared, freeze and panic. But we also see those who whistle at that moment of no return. Just before drawing a disconcerting smile. A grin that clarifies that every soul can end up darkening if it decides to inhabit the shadows or the wild side.
So no, Lawrence Osborne does not write crime novels. In any case, it dyes its plots black or is responsible for offering us at least glimpses against the light. The idea is to make the known shelter for that hidden side, a hiding place for the beasts that they try to keep in the last corner of the basement, convinced that if perhaps they do not feed, they may die.
The result is the addictive impression of being peered into life in those plots that few narrate because few are the ones who first indulge in the discovery of the wild side with no other intention than to escape from oneself.
Top 3 Recommended Novels by Lawrence Osborne
The naked tourist
The first novel is the one that one writes about one's own life. And the decision to base the plot thoroughly means starting off on a real journey. Because only away from what is already known, can one discover oneself more fully. It's like what some Chuck Palahniuk character said, How do you expect to know yourself if you've never been in a fight? That is the point, delving into the uncomfortable, into what violates you to forget everything you have been and let yourself be carried away by dormant impulses...
The writer Lawrence Osborne, despite knowing that no matter how far one goes there will always be a tour operator waiting for him, looks for a place far from civilization on the island of Papua New Guinea. And he decides to undertake a trip unlike any other: starting with one of the most polluted destinations on Earth, like Dubai that the sheikhs are transforming into an immense theme park, the Andaman Islands, semi-destroyed by the tsunami and in the process of reconstruction. like the new Maldives, Thailand, seen as a huge city of health and fitness, to conclude on an immense island between green skies, reddened rivers and erupting volcanoes, where Osborne will find himself naked and happy in the middle of a tribal orgy.
Hunters in the night
The opportunity as a goal of fortune. Luck as a conviction that it is today and not another day. The first step taken blindly with full conviction, not to return ...
Robert, a young Englishman on vacation in Southeast Asia, after winning a small fortune at a casino on the Cambodia-Thailand border, decides not to return to his monotonous life as a teacher in Sussex. He remains in Cambodia and lives adrift like so many other thousands of Western expatriates who "hunt at night", seeking happiness in a world full of superstitions that they will never fully understand.
However, the "cursed" money earned at the casino will set off a chain of events involving a distinguished American with a shady past, a trunk full of heroin, a hustler taxi driver and the attractive daughter of a wealthy Cambodian doctor. Against the suffocating background of a country traumatized by the barbarism of the Khmer Rouge, Lawrence Osborne reflects on the hidden machinations of fate that make us all "hunters in the night."
The forgiven
A road novel aboard a story told by Lawrence Osborne already points to an unusual journey. And yes, it also has an initiation point like any novel of this style. Except that the road taken at the wheel of a car on the edge of the desert ends up drawing hell on the lonely scene. Because the essential question for that place to hopelessly wait for us is that there be no regrets.
David and Jo Henniger, a doctor and children's book writer in deep marital crisis, accept an invitation from an old friend to attend a bacchanalia in a luxurious villa in the middle of the Moroccan desert. On the way to the party, David, who is driving drunk, fatally runs over a young Moroccan. When David and Jo arrive at the party, the Muslim Moroccans in domestic service, already scandalized by the hedonistic and frivolous attitude of the foreigners roaming the house, soon learn of David's unforgivable mistake.
