{
  "type": "book",
  "site": {
    "name": "The Book Quiver",
    "language": "en-US",
    "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com"
  },
  "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.",
  "title": "The Ballad of a Small Player",
  "subtitle": null,
  "slug": "the-ballad-of-a-small-player",
  "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player",
  "json": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player.json",
  "markdown": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player.md",
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Lawrence Osborne",
      "slug": "lawrence-osborne",
      "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne"
    }
  ],
  "language": "en_GB",
  "original_title": null,
  "original_language": null,
  "first_published": "2014-04-03",
  "genres": [
    {
      "code": "FBA",
      "heading": "Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general"
    },
    {
      "code": "FF",
      "heading": "Crime and / or mystery fiction"
    },
    {
      "code": "FH",
      "heading": "Thriller / suspense fiction"
    },
    {
      "code": "FK",
      "heading": "Horror, ghost stories and supernatural fiction"
    }
  ],
  "series": [],
  "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage-digital/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player_978-15-2996-125-6-84d9d0f6.jpg?v=2026-09-24%2004%3A57%3A28",
  "description": "SOON 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. His plan: to gamble away his last days in the dark and decadent casino halls of Macau. His 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. So 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. The 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.",
  "editions": [
    {
      "title": "The Ballad of a Small Player",
      "subtitle": null,
      "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player/9781529961256",
      "publisher": "Vintage Digital",
      "translators": [],
      "medium": "audio",
      "duration_seconds": 25500,
      "narrators": [
        "Rupert Penry-Jones"
      ],
      "illustrators": [],
      "cover_artists": [],
      "isbn": "978-15-2996-125-6",
      "pages": null,
      "published": "2025-03-06",
      "language": "en_GB",
      "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage-digital/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player_978-15-2996-125-6-84d9d0f6.jpg?v=2026-09-24%2004%3A57%3A28"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Ballad of a Small Player",
      "subtitle": null,
      "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player/9780099599685",
      "publisher": "Vintage",
      "translators": [],
      "medium": "paper",
      "duration_seconds": null,
      "narrators": [],
      "illustrators": [],
      "cover_artists": [],
      "isbn": "978-00-9959-968-5",
      "pages": 224,
      "published": "2015-04-23",
      "language": "en_GB",
      "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player_978-00-9959-968-5.jpg?v=2026-04-23%2000%3A35%3A17"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Ballad of a Small Player",
      "subtitle": null,
      "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player/9780804137997",
      "publisher": "hogarth",
      "translators": [],
      "medium": "paper",
      "duration_seconds": null,
      "narrators": [],
      "illustrators": [],
      "cover_artists": [],
      "isbn": "978-08-0413-799-7",
      "pages": 272,
      "published": "2015-01-13",
      "language": "en_US",
      "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/hogarth/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player_978-08-0413-799-7.jpg?v=2026-05-26%2023%3A42%3A15"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Ballad of a Small Player",
      "subtitle": null,
      "url": "https://www.bookquiver.com/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player/9781448189717",
      "publisher": "Vintage Digital",
      "translators": [],
      "medium": "ebook",
      "duration_seconds": null,
      "narrators": [],
      "illustrators": [],
      "cover_artists": [],
      "isbn": "978-14-4818-971-7",
      "pages": null,
      "published": "2014-04-03",
      "language": "en_GB",
      "cover": "https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage-digital/lawrence-osborne/the-ballad-of-a-small-player_978-14-4818-971-7-340705e5.webp?v=2026-10-07%2003%3A07%3A50"
    }
  ],
  "other_languages": [],
  "characters": [],
  "chapters": []
}