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Children of Wolves

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Children of Wolves

By: Lawrence Osborne
Narrated by: Rupert Penry-Jones
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A tense, Ripley-esque novel set in glittering Istanbul for readers of John le Carré and Patricia Highsmith

At the Mexican border, Diana ditches her car and jumps on a bus. Adam walks out of his Athens hotel with just his passport and credit cards. Marco abandons his life in London, leaving no note. At an idyllic spot on the Turkish Riviera, their comrade Chana waits for them.

Also waiting there is Tyler, a private investigator hired by an American billionaire to find his wayward, troubled daughter.

Once the five meet, a train of events is set in motion that will play out along this glittering coast, in the backstreets and renovated palaces of Istanbul and all the way to Cairo. A clash of generations, civilisations and ideologies that will test the young friends’ theory that a handful of collaborators can tilt the axis of the world through a single, striking act.

'An unsettling, hypnotic meditation on violence and privilege' Charles Cumming

© Lawrence Osborne 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Amateur Sleuths Genre Fiction International Mystery & Crime Literary Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense
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Critic reviews

An unsettling, hypnotic meditation on violence and privilege. Osborne is an unsung master of the literate, thought-provoking thriller (Charles Cumming)
Children of Wolves is the most arresting book yet by a master of contemporary fiction. An entirely original voice, Lawrence Osborne has perfected a new genre: the novel of suspense that illuminates our current condition. Revealing the feral creature that lies beneath civilized humanity, he shows how uncertainty and suspicion have become part of the way we live. Read the first page, and you will be hooked to the end. (John Gray, author of Straw Dogs)
The inimitable genius of a Lawrence Osborne novel is that underneath the gripping plot and the dazzling, cut-crystal prose, there’s always a dark truth about the world laid bare that we didn’t expect to face. In Children of Wolves, perhaps Osborne’s most menacing novel yet, that truth involves the privileged, cushioned lives of the children of the rich. Who has the sharper teeth, the billionaire titans of the world or their aimless, attractive offspring? Osborne paints such a gorgeous picture of louche, jet-set Istanbul, you almost forget to watch your back (Christopher Bollen, author of Havoc)
Osborne continues to push his brand of haunted escapism into strange, new places — even if for many of his characters, escape itself proves impossible. A pack of idle rich kids, desperate to give their lives meaning through a senseless act of violence. And Tyler, the older, unmoored private detective at their heels, who realises too late that this generation gap might be unbridgeable. Just don’t go confusing him with the novel’s author. In Children of Wolves, Osborne stays a comfortable step ahead of writers half his age. (Joseph Knox, author of Imposter Syndrome)
Children of Wolves confirms Lawrence Osborne as one of the most intelligently entertaining writers around. You don't so much read his dark idylls as dream your way through them, and this tale of beautiful danger in the form of four young renegades at large in Turkey is a superb addition to his canon (James Lasdun)
What begins with a Ripley-esque premise—an American sent abroad in search of the badly-behaved scion to a wealthy family—soon turns into a seductive cat and mouse, with the roles ever-changing. Children of Wolves is at once a labyrinthine thriller, set on dusky back streets and the terraces of five-star hotels, and an interrogation of privilege and (the performance of) politics in America’s imperial shadow (Rob Franklin, author of Great Black Hope)
A quietly gripping novel that begs for a sequel
A dual homage to Patricia Highsmith and Graham Greene
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