Beautiful Animals
A Novel
On a hike during a white-hot summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha make a startling discovery: a man named Faoud, sleeping heavily, exposed to the elements, but still alive. Naomi, the daughter of a wealthy British art collector who has owned a villa in the exclusive hills for decades, convinces Sam, a younger American girl on vacation with her family, to help this stranger. As the two women learn more about the man, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean Sea, their own burgeoning friendship intensifies, and when a simple plan of revenge goes horrifically wrong, Faoud must go on the run while the girls come to terms with the terrible consequences they have set in motion. In this brilliant psychological study of manipulation and greed, Lawrence Osborne creates another atmospheric masterpiece reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith and Paul Bowles.
