The Birthday Present (novel)

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The Birthday Present
First edition (UK)
Author	Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Crime/Mystery novel
Publisher	Viking (UK) Crown (US)
Publication date	6 June 2002
Media type	Print/Audiobook
Pages	400 pp (Hardback)
ISBN	0-670-91274-3
OCLC	59395413
Preceded by	Portobello
Followed by	The Monster in the Box

The Birthday Present (2008) is a novel by British writer Ruth Rendell, written under her pseudonym Barbara Vine. It was her first novel under this name in three years.

Plot summary[]

Robert, a city accountant narrates the story, with excerpts from one Jane Atherton's diary. He is married to Iris Tesham. Iris' brother Ivor is an up-and-coming Tory MP, who is having an affair with Hebe Furnal. Hebe uses Jane Atherton as her alibi for her trysts. Ivor Tesham arranges a mock abduction of Hebe as a birthday present for her, but it goes horribly wrong.^[1]

References[]

^ "This dark literary thriller". Salon.com www.salon.com. 2009-03-06. Retrieved 2009-09-26.

v t Ruth Rendell
Inspector Wexford novels	From Doon with Death A New Lease of Death Wolf to the Slaughter The Best Man to Die A Guilty Thing Surprised No More Dying Then Murder Being Once Done Some Lie and Some Die Shake Hands Forever A Sleeping Life Put on By Cunning The Speaker of Mandarin An Unkindness of Ravens The Veiled One Kissing the Gunner's Daughter Simisola Road Rage Harm Done The Babes in the Wood End in Tears Not in the Flesh The Monster in the Box The Vault No Man's Nightingale
Stand-alone novels	To Fear a Painted Devil Vanity Dies Hard The Secret House of Death One Across, Two Down The Face of Trespass A Demon in My View A Judgement in Stone Make Death Love Me The Lake of Darkness Master of the Moor The Killing Doll The Tree of Hands Live Flesh Heartstones Talking to Strange Men The Bridesmaid Going Wrong The Crocodile Bird The Keys to the Street A Sight for Sore Eyes Adam and Eve and Pinch Me The Rottweiler Thirteen Steps Down The Thief The Water's Lovely Portobello Tigerlily's Orchids The Saint Zita Society The Girl Next Door Dark Corners
As Barbara Vine	A Dark-Adapted Eye A Fatal Inversion The House of Stairs Gallowglass King Solomon's Carpet Asta's Book No Night is Too Long The Brimstone Wedding The Chimney Sweeper's Boy Grasshopper The Blood Doctor The Minotaur The Birthday Present The Child's Child
Short story collections	The Fallen Curtain Means of Evil The Fever Tree The New Girlfriend The Copper Peacock Blood Lines Piranha to Scurfy A Spot of Folly
TV series	The Ruth Rendell Mysteries The Barbara Vine Mysteries

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