{"product_id":"9780099599685","title":"The Ballad of a Small Player","description":"\u003ch3\u003eAuthor: Lawrence Osborne\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eModern \u0026amp; contemporary fiction (post c 1945)\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 23 April 2015 by Vintage Publishing (Vintage) in the United Kingdom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaperback | 224 pages\u003cbr\u003e198 x 131 x 14 | 166g\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSOON TO BE A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM, STARRING COLIN FARELL AND TILDA SWINTON‘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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis plan: to gamble away his last days in the dark and decadent casino halls of Macau.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSo 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cobham Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55947012866434,"sku":"9780099599685","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0569\/4567\/2367\/files\/9780099599685.jpg?v=1762758518","url":"https:\/\/www.cobhambooks.live\/products\/9780099599685","provider":"Cobham Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}