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by Barbara Vine
Ivor Tesham is a handsome, single, young member of Parliament whose political star is on the rise. When he meets a woman in a chance encounter – a beautiful, leggy, married woman named Hebe – the two become lovers obsessed with their trysts, spiced up by what the newspapers like to call “adventure sex.”
It’s the dress-up and role-play that inspire Ivor to create a surprise birthday present for his beloved that involves a curbside kidnapping. It’s all intended as mock-dangerous foreplay, but then things take a dark turn.
After things go horribly wrong, Ivor begins to receive anonymous letters that reveal astonishingly specific details about the affair and its aftermath. Somehow he must keep his role from being uncovered – and his political future from being destroyed by scandal.
Like a heretic on the inquisitor’s rack, Ivor is not to be spared the exquisitely slow and tortuous unfolding of events, as hints, nuances, and small revelations lay his darkest secrets hideously bare for all the world to see.
The Birthday Present is a deft, insightful, and compulsively readable exploration of obsessive desire – and the dark twists of fate that can shake the lives of even those most insulated by privilege, sophistication, and power.
"Starred Review. Full of psychological insight, this is an absolute must for Vine/Rendell enthusiasts - and those who have yet to encounter her genius." - Publishers Weekly.
"Less dense and gloomy than most of Vine's work, though that's a matter of degree. Despite an untidy and anticlimactic ending, as gripping a tale as you'll read this year." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Starred review. The setup is a bit slow, but once everything is in place, the tension remains high. Highly recommended." - Library Journal.
This information about The Birthday Present was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Ruth Rendell sits in the House of Lords as a Labour peer. She lives in Maida Vale, London.
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