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The Ballad of a Small Player by Lawrence Osborne (Paperback, 2015)

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At precisely the point where most novelists start to show signs of flagging, Osborne has hit his creative, fictional stride.and has arrived as a thrilling, exceptional talent in British fiction's landscape.

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A riveting study of risk and obsession, from a writer of effortless grace and menace 'I waited patiently for the next hand to be played out, and I had a feeling it was going to be a Natural, a perfect nine.' His name is Lord Doyle. His plan- to gamble away his last days in the dark and decadent casino halls of Macau. His game- baccarat punto blanco -- 'that slutty dirty queen of casino card games.' Though Doyle is not a Lord at all. He is a fake; a corrupt lawyer who has spent a career siphoning money from rich clients. And now he is on the run, determined to send the money - and himself - up in smoke. So begins a beguiling, elliptical velvet rope of a plot- a sharp suit, yellow kid gloves, another naughty lemonade and an endless loop of small wins and losses. When Lady Luck arrives in the form of Dao-Ming, a beautiful yet enigmatic lost soul, so begins a spectacular and unnatural winning streak in which millions come Doyle's way. But in these shadowy dens of risk and compulsion, in a land governed by superstition, Doyle knows that when the bets are high, the stakes are even greater. The Ballad of a Small Player is a sleek, dark-hearted masterpiece- a ghost story set in the land of the living, and a decadent morality tale of a Faustian pact made, not with the devil, but with fortune's fickle hand.