Adrian Turpin
Smelling a Baccarat
In the casinos of Macau, a corrupt English solicitor masquerading as ‘Lord Doyle’ burns through a pile of stolen cash. His game of choice is punto banco, a version of baccarat requiring no skill, so his future lies in the hands of either mathematical chance or the supernatural. Which is it? The question will literally haunt the protagonist of Lawrence Osborne’s new novel. In turn, Doyle will cast an increasingly spectral shadow on those around him. It is no coincidence that Cantonese slang for foreigner is gwai lo, which translates as ‘ghost person’.
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'This rude spectral activity was a far cry from the moaning and chain-clanking traditionally associated with hauntings. It had a distinctly modern flavour.'
@LucyLethbridge on a real life haunting.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-woolworths-poltergeist
'I inadvertently saw "Saturn Devouring His Son" in my early teens and it was a very unsettling thing to come across.'
@robinsimonbaj on Goya.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/he-painted-it-black
'The narrative moves fluently between the raffish ... life he was living there, his main love affair and friendships – most of them kept up for a lifetime – and his journalism.'
Jeremy Treglown weighs up Hermione Lee's biography of Tom Stoppard.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-long-road-to-leopoldstadt