Review: 'On Java Road,' by Lawrence Osborne

Lawrence Osborne's fiction tracks the checkered fortunes of strangers in strange lands. Some of his peripatetic protagonists are culture-shocked, others try to fit in, but all end up out of their depth. In the 2012 "The Forgiven," a couple from London wrestle with the repercussions of a fatal accident in the Moroccan desert. In "Hunters in the Dark" (2015), an itinerant Englishman tries to go off the grid in Cambodia but instead walks head first into danger. And in "Beautiful Animals" (2017), two western women encounter a Syrian migrant on a Greek island and then find themselves in a web of murder and manipulation.

The British-born author, himself something of a nomad, has set his latest novel in Hong Kong. This time around his "rootless wanderer" is a veteran English journalist whose dedication to unearthing the truth eventually puts his reputation on the line, a key friendship under pressure, and his life in jeopardy.

Adrian Gyle has been an ex-pat reporter in Hong Kong for more than 20 years. Although he has never made a name for himself, he has become, in his words, an "excellent nonentity." Sometimes he has received a helping hand from his old Cambridge University friend Jimmy Tang, who as the scion of one of Hong Kong's wealthiest families wields considerable power and influence.

When pro-democracy protesters take to the streets to demonstrate against Beijing's harsh policies and erosion of freedoms, both men observe the civil unrest that unfolds. Then Jimmy introduces Adrian to Rebecca To, a student protester with whom he has begun an extramarital affair. Jimmy is infatuated with her and "fascinated by the anarchy."

Adrian leaves them to their romance and ventures out wearing his helmet and gas mask to report on the riots. However, when he encounters Rebecca alone, his feelings grow. Soon he believes he is better suited to her than her millionaire socialite lover. "We both saw through him," he muses, "but we couldn't see through each other."

Just when the novel looks set to revolve around a sharp-angled, ill-fated love triangle, Osborne changes gears. Rebecca suddenly goes missing and Jimmy goes into hiding. Will Rebecca's body turn up in Victoria Harbor, the latest victim in a spate of recent murders? Is Jimmy involved in a sinister coverup? Switching from newshound to bloodhound, Adrian goes in search of answers, aware that mounting conspiracy theories are muddying his path and that he is now an unwanted visitor in his adopted city.

Osborne's work has been compared to that of Graham Greene and Patricia Highsmith. There are hints of those writers' influences in "On Java Road," from the fish-out-of-water protagonist to the evocative depiction of an exotic locale to the murky mystery with its streaks of moral ambiguity. It isn't as gritty as it perhaps should be. Nevertheless, Osborne tells a riveting and neatly unnerving story that brilliantly conveys "a period of sacred madness."

Malcolm Forbes has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

On Java Road

By: Lawrence Osborne.

Publisher: Hogarth, 256 pages, $27.