Maybe closer to 4 stars.

An English couple accidentally kills a young Muslim fossil seller on their way to a lavish party in a remote area of Morocco. The lavish homestead they are visiting is both fascinating and off putting in its excess and debauchery. I most enjoyed the tensions between the "Godless infidels" (westerners) and the Muslims.

An examination of the assumptions Muslims and westerners make about each other, the ways in which they misunderstand each other, and how they can each feel superior to the other. Of course, in this setting, the westerners are so bacchanalian it's easy to understand the contempt they receive.

Good writing and would make for an interesting discussion.

This being the second Osborne book I read (after "On Java Road") left me with mixed feelings. I certainly enjoyed reading it and would recommend it. The parts I found unconvincing and superficial where those that are told with the voice of the Moroccan characters. I simply cannot believe that the Cambridge and Harvard educated Mr Osborne can ever acquire the deep understanding of the people whose inner thoughts he describes, and I do not care in how many countries he has lived and reported from .... On the contrary, unlike other reviews, I thought that the "white mischief" is portrayed very well, and the descriptions of the natural surroundings are very evocative of the harshness and beauty of the Moroccan landscape.
For me, thankfully, there was no tidy moral resolution or atonement at the end of the story .... as, most of the time, in real life.

2.5 stars.

The book jacket says, "David and Jo Henniger...in search of an escape from their less than happy lives in London, accept an invitation to attend a bacchanal at their old friends' home, deep in the Moroccan desert. But as a groggy David navigates the dark desert roads, two young men spring from the roadside, the car swerves...and one boy is left dead."

The story deals with the aftermath of that accident. It sounds like it should be a page turner, right? Alas, it was not. For me anyway.... Instead, I would read a bit and then put it down and not return to it for several days. I didn't look forward to reading it, yet, was determined to finish to see how it turned out.

It's well written but there is too much detail that didn't seem necessary. The story deals with (really) unpleasant people and morality and probably could have been a really good short story if the author edited himself.

Osborne at his most cynical. this is my least favorite of his novels. it contains all the things one can come to expect from him — clash of cultures, clash of class, clash of race, and really good writing. there's not a likable/admirable character in the bunch. the author must have been having a bad day(s).

This is really hard to rate! A very well written story, with a wide range of well-developed characters. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, there was a constant stream of anxiety about how it would wrap up. One of my favorite things about the book was the way Osborne addressed the modern relationship between Europeans and Moroccans.

Beautiful writing and endlessly deft twists and refractions of the story as we know it. It might be the writer in me, but those shifts of perspective are so well-done, and bring about such huge flips that they teeter on being too clever or authorial. Osborne comes close to that but he handles this brilliantly and implicated me for my judgments about the characters right up to the last sentences of his story. As a dissector of character, nuance, manners, culture and prejudice, he's incredible and he manages to make all sides of his story highly relatable. Really looking forward to reading more of him.

While on the way to a party in the Moroccan desert, David and Jo Henniger have an accident. It is the middle of the night and two men approach David and Jo in their car. David caught off guard swerves and hits one of the men. The other man takes off running into the desert. David and Jo put the dead man's body in the trunk of their car and make their way to their destination. It is not long after they arrive that word spreads about what David and Jo did.

I was excited to pick up this book and start reading it. I kind of feel like this was a bad Halloween joke. I just stumbled me way along through this book and not continuously. I would skim it or even jump forward several chapters and than start reading again. I found the pacing of this story to be extremely slow. Too much so for my liking. I might have been singing a different song if I had liked the characters but none of them were that interesting. There were too many descriptive details. Reading this book I felt like I was sitting in the office with a psychologist. Overall, this book was not my cup of tea.

Beautifully written, shattering prose that makes Western (in)sensibilities crumble in the harsh desert sun of northern Africa. I want to pen so much more about why this novel is superlatively fantabulous, but I'll unwittingly spoil things without Spoiler tags.

The only future worth entertaining is the one we can’t imagine at all.

Forgive me, please, and read this wondrous novel about how we all go about [un]Forgiven.