A British member of Parliament (Ivor Graham) is having an affair with a married young woman (Hebe Furnal) and arranges for an unusual birthday present: with her full consent. She is to be mock-kidnapped, bound and blindfolded, and delivered to him for some light S&M related sex play. Unfortunately for both, the car being driven by Graham's confederates crashes during the staged abduction and Hebe is killed. This novel focuses chiefly on the aftermath, including the prospect that the situation will be revealed and that the ensuing scandal will end Graham's promising political career. The story is told by two narrators -- Ivor's brother-in-law (Robin) and Hebe's best friend, Jane, who typically provided Hebe with convenient alibis while Hebe engaged in her trysts. Jane is the most interesting character of the story, as the reader witnesses the decline in her stability and her ability to recognize reality.

The plot set up had interesting potential, but the story doesn't quite live up to it. The book drags somewhat because the events move so slowly towards the expected (predictable) conclusion. ( )

Ivor Graham, up and coming MP, is having g an affair with Hebe Furnal. As a birthday treat he arranged a role play abduction. Things go wrong leaving a tangle of people involved who may at any point let on that Ivor is involved. Just when Ivor thinks it's all blown over...

A fascinating and captivating series of twist and turns make this an interesting good read. ( )

The Birthday Present is by Barbara Vine which is a pseudonym for mystery writer Ruth Rendell. Vine seems to be her darker, more psychologically complex self. The Birthday Present tells of ambitious politician Ivor Tesham and his affair with married woman, Hebe. I found Ivor both unlikable and unsympathetic. He considered asking his lover to leave both her husband and her young child and allow herself to be set up in a flat. He had no intention of living with her or marrying her, this would all be for his convenience. When he was told she would most likely bring her child with her, he abandoned the idea.

Ivor arranges a birthday present for Hebe, an ‘adventure sex’ episode that goes horribly wrong. The story unfolds from two separate viewpoints, first Ivor’s friend and brother-in-law and then that of Jane, Hebe’s best friend and the person who provided her with alibis to cover her absences from her family. Jane’s version comes in the form of diary entries. I actually found Jane to be the most interesting person in the book, very much a Barbara Vine character, solitary, lonely, bitter and self-pitying.

Although not a bad book, I ended up being slightly disappointed with The Birthday Present, it didn’t seem to have any deep psychological statements to make and compared to other Barbara Vine books that I have read in the past, this one was lacking. I thought the author could have explored the theme of ‘adventure sex’ in a more exciting way, instead this book was rather dreary, sad and unsurprising. ( )

I've never read a Barbara Vine novel that didn't intrigue and satisfy me with insights into the darker twists and turns of the human psyche. The Birthday Present is no exception.

Although Barbara Vine's novels are quieter than those written under Ruth Rendell's name, they are equally filled with the quirky, disturbed, often amoral characters that I love. This one kept me turning pages even when I knew it was time to turn out the lights.

Compared to her other books, the end dragged on a little longer than usual and longer than necessary. ( )

As one would expect from Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, this novel is well written and at times quite absorbing. It tells the story of a rising Tory MP whose lover dies in a car crash that was organized as part of a mock abduction / sex game. Given the circumstances, including the fact that the woman is married, he doesn't report it to the authorities and it takes several years before all the different strands pointing to him come together -- largely the self-fulfilling result of his attempts to bury the truth (or, more to the point, his behavior which is explicable pretty much only as the actions of a person who wants to be caught).

The weakness of the novel is that after a promising start it never comes together in any sort of satisfying manner. The ending is essentially stated at the opening of the novel and the unfolding of the events leading to it contain little in the way of surprise or a satisfying conclusion. Still, it remains interesting to the very end -- although some of that comes from the expectation that Rendell/Vine is going to deliver something different than what she ultimately did deliver. ( )