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The Glass Kingdom

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Sarah Talbot Jennings, a young American living in New York, has fled to Bangkok to disappear. Arriving with a suitcase containing $200,000, she rents an apartment at the Kingdom, a glittering high-end complex slowly sinking into its own twilight - and run by conveniently discreet staff.

In Bangkok's shocking heat Sarah meets the beguiling Mali, a half-Thai tenant who's strangely determined to bring the quiet American out of her shell. An invitation to Mali's poker nights soon follows, where - fuelled by shots of yadong, gossip of shady dealings in the city and the hit of marijuana - Sarah is drawn into the orbit of the Kingdom's glamorous ex-pat women.

But when an attempted military coup wracks the streets below and Sarah witnesses something unspeakable through one of the Kingdom's windows, only to be followed by a series of strange disappearances, Sarah's safe haven begins to feel like a trap.

From a master of atmosphere and suspense, The Glass Kingdom is a brilliantly unsettling story of cruelty and psychological unrest, and an enthralling glimpse into the shadowy crossroads of karma and human greed.

'Bangkok is the star of this accomplished novel. Its denizens are aliens to themselves, glittering on the horizon of their own lives, moving - restless and rootless and afraid - though a cityscape that has more stories than they know' HILARY MANTEL

© Lawrence Osborne 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Crime Thrillers Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Suspense Thriller & Suspense Women's Fiction Thriller Crime Fiction Royalty

Critic reviews

Showing Osborne at the height of his powers, The Glass Kingdom upends the Western reader's most basic assumptions about the human world . . . stylish and disquieting (John Gray)
Bangkok is the star of this accomplished novel. Its denizens are aliens to themselves, glittering on the horizon of their own lives, moving - restless and rootless and afraid - though a cityscape that has more stories than they know (Hilary Mantel)
The author's exceptional descriptive skills fuel an overwhelming sense of menace . . . the next day you will still be thinking of Sarah's fate with horror (Louise Doughty)
Osborne's novels are lavishly filmic . . . The setting is luxurious, the lifestyle hedonistic, the climate oppressively hot. Prodigious amounts of alcohol are consumed. As events accelerate towards a violent finale, the reader is kept guessing. How severe will the consequences be for the interloper? Which will prevail, revenge or forgiveness? (Blake Morrison)
Lawrence Osborne goes from strength to strength. In The Glass Kingdom he once again displays a feel for the Westerner abroad in an alien culture, where misunderstandings can prove deadly. The author has lived for years in Bangkok, whose seediness runs deeper than the superficially icky red light district most foreign writers take on. Great characters, plenty of suspense, and a killer ending (Lionel Shriver)
An atmospheric, gripping novel . . . a horror-satire of globalised capital in which money might buy you idle time or the semblance of power, but it also makes you a target. The Kingdom's residents are blind to its fragility until it is almost too late: as apt a metaphor for 2020 as a novel could hope to provide (Ed Cumming)
Bewitching (Geoffrey Wheatcroft)
Osborne, who specialises in stories about hapless Westerners coming a cropper in foreign lands, has another hit on his hands with this sinister, sensuous and wonderfully evocative tale (Katie Law)
Oozing menace, Osborne's compelling novel is wonderfully atmospheric and deeply macabre (Anthony Gardner)
Lawrence Osborne did not disappoint in his atmospheric thriller The Glass Kingdom (Lionel Shriver)
All stars
Most relevant
The writer brilliantly captures Bangkok and this had the making of a really good story however the plot disappointed. Characters faded away and the decline of the main character wasn't fully explored. the ending was disappointing and I felt this story needed an epilogue to tie up the loose ends.

disappointing

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This book is most notable for its keenly observed picture of Bangkok and the ethnography of its castes and characters. This is well-observed and for someone like me who has spent some years there, entirely credible and full of chords that resonate. It makes for wonderful atmospherics. All this marvelous decor is diverting in itself and makes up in part for a thinly developed storyline and weaker development of the characters. These remain underdeveloped, which undermines our believing their motivations. I liked the story in spite of this, but because I wanted to.

I see comments criticising the reader, with which I disagree. Some (Western) accents are mishandled which does distract in moments, but the choice of a Thai speaker was probably worthwhile on balance.

Ambiance

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I enjoyed the story for its own sake, but the reading was truly awful. It was read with no reference to punctuation or the flow of the sentences, which spoilt it.

Quite intriguing

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It took awhile to fully engage me because although the imagery created by the writing was magnetic, the voiceover was a little grating on occasion and therefore distracting and it was unclear at times as to whose voice was speaking. The writing however created all of the claustrophobia, the unpredictability of the network of intrigues, the lifeblood of its unlikable but fascinating characters, the ambience of the torrid city of Bangkok and it’s unsavoury inhabitants and itinerant population. Finally a riveting thriller with an entirely unexpected ending. I can recommend without hesitation. Thank you Mr. Osborne!

Slow burn thriller

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