Brilliantly original and absurdly compelling ... it’s a book you’ll read in one, frantic gasp

Richard Beard is one of those rare writers whose novels are at once radically inventive and brilliantly entertaining. Acts of the Assassins … is as joyously original as it is a page-turner to read

The Acts of the Assassins is…spectacularly successful. It is thoughtful and clever and brutal and true… It is a Chinese puzzle box of a novel. A garden of forking paths. A page-turner. A modern classic

Extraordinarily funny...confident and enchanting

It is a darkly funny, virtuoso performance… so cleverly done it almost winks at the reader

Controversial, thought-provoking, funny and challenging, Acts of the Assassin is a delightfully fantastic and utterly compelling tale

One of the strangest and most interesting novels written this century… Brave and gripping novel

This novel takes a circular saw to received ideas about belief, fate, will, and storytelling. It’s also very funny

An uproariously funny read

Richard Beard is one of those rare writers whose novels are at once radically inventive and brilliantly entertaining

One of this year’s most gripping and unusual thrillers

A superior literary crime novel, and a highly unorthodox historical novel...Endlessly entertaining

[Richard Beard has] slicded New Testament history with Le Carre-style espionage

Intriguing novel

Very fine...an excellent addition to the literature of personal displacement. Grappling with manifold questions about identity and the tragic futility of material aspirations in a ruthless, brittle world, this novel draws you into a sun-struck realm where the survival of the fittest is more predicated by chance and where violence is a sudden, opportunistic enterprise

The best writer you’ve never heard of, Osborne is hitting mean form as a writer of exotic literary thrillers. … Sensual, dream-like and gripping

This is an elegantly told story that will keep you intrigued until you hit the back cover

An atmospheric read

It’s with expert control of the narrative here that [Osborne] captures a life adrift

Dark, teasing, elegantly written book

Darkly sinister, threatening and compelling, this is one you’ll come back to again and again

Alive with malice and grace, this is a taut tale reminiscent of the nightmares of Patricia Highsmith

Prey and predators circle in lush southeast Asian settings that gleam with Osborne’s dazzling skill as a travel-writer

It shines with intrigue, with investigations into the nature of the non-rational, and evil, wrapped up in taught plotting

One of Britain’s most accomplished novelists.

An ingenious and atmospheric novel.

Lawrence Osborne is an experienced, competent author with an impressive knowledge of Asia… Comparisons with Graham Greene seem to be generously offered by other reviewers and I’ve already alluded to Conrad and a Patricia Highsmith yet my impression is that Mr. Osborne has a style all of his own.

McCarthy has put his finger on something, and he’s nailed it very precisely. It’s how we live now. All the information we process every day. What it’s doing to us.