The Birthday Present [Large Print] [Paperback]

Barbara Vine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2009

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.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Viking have published her twelve previous novels, including A Dark Adapted Eye, which won the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award, and more recently Grasshopper, The Blood Doctor and The Minotaur. Barbara Vine is widely regarded as the pre-eminent crime novelist of her generation. Ruth Rendell sits in the House of Lords as a Labour peer. She lives in Maida Vale, London. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Rnib (April 2, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 1858789664
• ISBN-13: 978-1858789668
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,925,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Psychological thriller, November 19, 2010

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Elizabeth L. Furdell - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Birthday Present. Barbara Vine (Paperback)

Barbara Vine, a pseudonym of Ruth Rendell, never presents her readers with a mystery to solve or with characters easy to admire. In "The Birthday Present" she recreates the Thatcher era when the Tories were supreme and sex scandals dogged the Conservatives. One such scandal involves an MP, brother-in-law to one of the two narrators, who sets out to frighten his married mistress by having her kidnapped on the way to a planned assignation on her birthday. A fatal car accident, however, sets in motion startling changes in the lives of all who knew people killed on the road and has them careening towards each other. The other narrator, less dependable but essential to the development of the story, is the mistress's frequent "alibi," down on her luck but hopeful she can barter what she knows for money. I found the novel impossible to put down, driving me to an inevitably bloody denouement.