Birthday Present, The

Product Description One of the world's most popular writers of mysteries and thrillers, Ruth Rendell (who also writes as Barbara Vine) tells a gripping story of one man's rise and fall from grace.It's late spring of 1990 and a love affair is flourishing: between Ivor Tesham, an ardent womanizer and rising star of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and Hebe Furnal, a stunning North London housewife stuck in a dull marriage. On the eve of her birthday, Tesham gives Hebe a present to remember: a man arranges for his unsuspecting, but otherwise willing, girlfriend to be snatched from the street, bound and gagged, and then delivered to him… About the Author Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fourteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Ruth Rendell sits in the House of Lords as a Labour peer. She lives in Maida Vale, London.