The Birthday Present

The Birthday Present, by Barbara Vine, is a different type of crime novel. For one thing, no crime to speak of occurs until the book is almost finished. For another, that crime, as well as the other violence that the book contains, happens off-page, and is described by someone who wasn't there. But it's fascinating nonetheless, and even as I was to the last few pages I wasn't sure what was going to happen next.

The title refers to the linchpin event. A member of British Parliament, Ivor Tresham, has a mistress, and they like to play kinky games. For her birthday, he hires two men to stage a fake kidnapping of her, complete with handcuffs and blindfold. Something goes wrong, and the woman and one of the actors is killed. Though Tresham has committed no crime, and is unmarried, he says nothing to the police, who assume that it was an actual kidnapping. Even later, when they further assume that the kidnappers were targeting the wrong woman, he says nothing. The narrator of the story, his brother-in-law, knows everything, but also keeps quiet.

Tresham, who fancies himself an English gentleman but is also a cad of the highest order, sweats this out for years. He ends up romantically involved with the dead "kidnapper's" girlfriend, and gives money to the other "kidnapper," who was so badly injured that he can't talk. But the mistress's friend, Jane, who was to serve as her alibi for the deadly evening, starts to feel that she is owed something for her silence. We see her diary entries, and as time goes by she becomes more mentally unstable.

Vine (a pseudonym for esteemed crime writer Ruth Rendell) has crafted a polished and terse novel, with very little flourish but a world of detail. The story, which begins in 1990, incorporates British history throughout, mentioning IRA bombings, the Bosnian crisis, and the rise of Labour after many years of Conservative rule. The narrator, Robin Delgado, loves his brother-in-law, but also sees him for what he is, and his narration is crisp. There a few McGuffins that float about, like a string of pearls and a gas bill, that make this in the classic style of a thriller, but because of the twists and turns this was a thriller unlike any I've ever read. Well done.