The Birthday Present - Softcover

Vine, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141036214 ISBN 13: 9780141036212

Publisher: Penguin, 2009

Synopsis

The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine - a gripping, psychological thriller packed with menace

Intensely imagined, fearful and satisfying' Sunday Times

Tory MP Ivor Tesham has unconventional tastes. And in bored housewife Hebe Furnal he finds someone to share and enact his sexual fantasies. However, one day it all goes terribly wrong. Ivor plans a special liaison for Hebe's birthday - a daring sexual adventure. But dangerous games have unforeseen costs and consequences. And when there is an accidental death, scandal and ruin cannot be far behind . . .

How long can a secret stay a secret?
How long will friends protect a reputation?
And how long before guilt catches up with you?

'The pre-eminent genius of the psychological thriller' Herald

'Gripping, compelling' Mail on Sunday

'Vintage Vine' Literary Review

If you like P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love The Bithday Present by Barbara Vine.

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

About this title

Review:

The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together (Ian Rankin)

Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell letting rip (Daily Telegraph)

A superb and original writer (Amanda Craig, Express)

Slick (Financial Times 2008-09-27)

Again a great read from a master of the story-telling process (Irish Times 2008-09-20)

Packed with menace and the threat of exposure. One of Rendell's most complex plots. (The Independent 2008-09-12)

Her Barbara Vine novels allow [Ruth Rendell] to retain her title as Britain's pre-eminent psychological thriller. A suspenseful and chilling tale (The Observer 2008-08-31)

Characters are intensely imagined and far from the usual uncomplicated stereotypes of victims and perpetrators. An experience that is both fearful and satisfying (The Sunday Times 2008-08-24)

A strong creation (Telegraph.co.uk 2008-08-31)

Riveting and only too plausible account of the downfall of a politician. Brilliant narrative voice. An unsurpassed portrait of a character suffering from low self-esteem, mild paranoia and gradual mental deterioration. (The Daily Mail 2008-08-22)

Synopsis:

It's late spring of 1990 and a love affair is flourishing: between Ivor Tesham, a thirty-three year old rising star of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and Hebe Furnal, a stunning North London housewife stuck in a dull marriage. What excitement Hebe lacks at home, however, is amply compensated for by the well-bred and intensely attractive Tesham - an ardent womanizer and ambitious politican. On the eve of her twenty-eighth birthday, Tesham decides to give Hebe a present to remember: something far more memorable than, say, the costly string of pearls he's already lavished upon her.Involving a fashionable new practice known as 'adventure sex', a man arranges for his unsuspecting but otherwise willing girlfriend to be snatched from the street, bound and gagged, and delivered to him at a mutually agreed venue ...Set amidst an age of IRA bombings, the first Gulf War, and sleazy politics, "The Birthday Present" is the gripping story of a fall from grace, and of a man who carries within him all the hypocrisy, greed and self-obsession of a troubled era.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141036214
• ISBN 13: 9780141036212
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288