Book Review: The Dinner Club

By Sandy Amazeen Mar 19, 2007, 3:37 GMT

Several isolated yuppie women begin meeting on a regular basis in an effort to make new friends in a trendy Dutch country town located a couple hours out of Amsterdam and manage to forge strong bonds based on husbands, children and alcohol. Their world is shaken with the burning death of Evert, Babette’s husband and father of two boys. Everything about the fire is suspicious, from the drugs found in their drinks to the way it started and points to Evert’s complete mental breakdown. The group begins to fracture amid personal recriminations about missed signs, allegations of infidelity and shady business deals. With the shocking falling death of another of their group, it becomes increasingly obvious that there is something seriously wrong within their tight little clique, but who to trust? It soon becomes clear that everyone in this group has their secrets and in a community where appearance is everything, it could be that no one is exactly what they make out to be.

A bit slow at the start as one follows the initial club formation and begins building up speed throughout. There are times one wants to give the characters a big shake and wake them up with a reality check as they appear to be oblivious to everything but their own myopic concerns but then, that’s what makes this such a finely crafted piece.