The Dinner Club [Paperback]

Saskia Noort (Author), Paul Vincent (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

“Are you a Nicci French fan? Then read The Dinner Club.”—Beau Monde

“A thrilling read.”—De Telegraaf

“An exciting novel that is also a morality tale laced with biting satire.”—Het Parool

When Evert dies in his burning villa, everything points to suicide. The other members of the “dinner club,” a group of five women who meet regularly and whose husbands do business together, rally around to support Babette, his grieving widow. But events soon spiral out of control. Within weeks, a member of the club falls from the balcony of a hotel and dies. Something is poisoning their smug world of flashy SUVs, coffee mornings, and wine-filled evenings and bringing death in its wake.

This is a high-spirited, sexy, and ingeniously plotted tale about people desperate to hang on to the trappings of success—at any cost.

Imagine Desperate Housewives scripted by Patricia Highsmith. That’s The Dinner Club.

Saskia Noort is a freelance journalist and writes features for, among others, the Dutch editions of Marie Claire and Playboy. Her first thriller, Back to the Coast, was published to great acclaim in 2003. The Dinner Club followed in 2004 and, with over 300,000 copies sold, has topped the Dutch bestseller list.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A group of women in an upscale Dutch country town form the titular clique in this engaging crime novel, the first English translation from Noort (Back to the Coast). Karen, who narrates, bonds with another Amsterdam escapee, Hanneke, an interior designer, and together they recruit Patricia, Angela, Babette and their husbands to drink, dine and enjoy one another's company. But when Babette's husband, Evert, begins having psychological problems and apparently commits suicide by burning down his home, their group begins to fracture amid allegations of infidelity and shady financial dealings. From an innocuous social gathering to a group mired in extramarital affairs and distrust, the disintegration of the "dinner club" unveils the web of deceit among friends. Sensuality and intrigue propel the novel to its shocking conclusion, when Noort reveals that no character is exactly who he or she seems. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Noort is a journalist who took the Netherlands by storm in 2004 with this delicious tale of deception and death. It's from one of the basic guilty-pleasure food groups: genre fluff leavened with smart writing. An exotic (to U.S. readers, anyway) locale helps turn this tale of striving exurban backstabbers into an even tastier treat. Think Desperate Housewives with a decent plotline. There's the dashing mogul-in-the-making who takes the women to bed after taking the men to the cleaners. There's a roundelay of sumptuous parties at impeccably decorated houses complete with ornamental children. There's a spate of mysterious deaths that unravels the superficial bonds among this five-couple "dinner club." There's the detective with a personal score to settle who's determined to pierce the conspiracy of silence. There's a woman who might well be more unbalanced than she appears. And there's another one who keeps asking uncomfortable questions the others ignore for fear of undermining their comfortable lifestyles. What's not to like? Pop this book open and serve it with your finest meats and cheeses. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904738206
• ISBN-13: 978-1904738206
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #945,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Confusing at the end, but pervaded with a quiet menace, September 25, 2008

By 

Debra Hamel (North Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dinner Club (Paperback)

After Karen moved into the village from Amsterdam with her husband, Michel, and their two daughters, it took her a while to make friends. But finally she found Hanneke, and through her three other woman, and the five of them became fast friends. They dubbed themselves "The Dinner Club" and became a mutual support group--they drank and ate and vacationed together, watched one another's kids. Their husbands did business together. But when the book opens one of their houses is on fire. Someone dies. And the tragedy, together with another which follows shortly afterward, lays bare various truths, among them that the relationships among the members of the Club are more superficial than Karen had supposed. Nor were the members' five marriages as happy as she had supposed.

Saskia Noort's The Dinner Club follows the downward trajectory of the Club's relationships. As things disintegrate, Karen comes increasingly to suspect that the fire was fueled by something more than middle-aged angst and alcohol. The book is filled with a quiet menace, and Noort does a great job of keeping us guessing, our suspicions alighting now on one character, now another. After this slow, steady build-up of tension the book's conclusion, an explosion of violence, is jarring. It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the book. The conclusion also left me thinking I might have to re-read some chapters to figure out what, precisely, was the truth behind the complex of relationships among the five Dinner Club members and their husbands.

The Dinner Club, which was originally pubished in Dutch in 2004, has been a best-seller in the Netherlands, and film rights to the book have been sold. It would, I think, translate well to the screen.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Summer Read, July 18, 2007

By 

Catalicious "Catalicious" (Ardsley-on-hudson, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dinner Club (Paperback)

This is not a literary masterpiece of mystery writing a la Ruth Rendall, but a good summer read.

You can finish it in a few train rides or on the beach.

The characters are at first interesting but become stock figures by the end. The one sour note for me was the obvious dyke stereotype of the female detective (who turned out to be straight) who's character never added anything to the plot except for a cheesy device where she knew one of the other characters because he had cheated her father but there really wasn't any depth to the side story.

Although I've only given the negatives, I still felt it was a worthwhile read. The plot goes back a forth in time and I liked this device for this story, but I would have really wanted more in the way of character development. I believe Ms. Noort has talent and I look forward to reading more novels by her and hope she develops her skills in storytelling.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fine Dutch mystery, April 5, 2007

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dinner Club (Paperback)

The inferno destroyed the villa killing wealthy Evert Struyck; his wife Babette was injured but their two children, Luuk and Beau, managed to escape. Babette's four female friends (Karen van de Made, Patricia Vogel, Hanneke Lemstra and Angela Bijlsma) who make up along with her the female part of "the dinner club" couples, try to help the distraught woman. Adding to the shock is that the police found Evert's "farewell" note in his car asking the others for forgiveness leading to the police to conclude suicide.

However, not long afterward Hanneke falls from a hotel balcony. Unable to ignore what is happening to her friends and fearing her family is next, Karen begins to piece together the motive behind the two deaths as she begins to understand that The Dinner Club and its male spousal equivalent are tied not by friendship and caring, but by crime and adultery.

The tale starts off as an extended family drama in which the audience sees how each of the surviving seven members of the Dinner Club and their offspring cope with the first death of one of them though that look is mostly filtered by Karen. Half way into the story, when Karen calls to speak to Hanneke, but instead gets an Amsterdam cop the story line turns into an amateur sleuth mystery. Thus the audience will know the key players at least through the Karen sieve before the thriller kicks into first gear. Well written but somewhat slow at first, this is a fine Dutch mystery.

Harriet Klausner