I am anxious, though, that something of this contempt spills over and starts to marinate the prose to its own detriment; certainly, the narrators’ constantly withering assessments of other characters threaten to swamp the reading experience. Lastly, of course, gradually we learn what actually happened on the night of the party and of the consequences of those events. In my single years, she set me up on dates and we’d debrief over coffee and laughter the next morning. This is a dark and compelling book of lifelong obsessions, jealousies and neuroses; of acute psychological complaint, of dissatisfactions, of isolation, loneliness and solipsistic rage.

Fans of Herman Koch's The Dinner will be tempted to check out Day's fourth novel - both follow two couples with simmering emotional histories as they spend an upscale evening together, during which old resentments are revealed and something tragic occurs - but in this novel, the plot plays out predictably and is beset by obvious foreshadowing. All these cruel people who would seemingly make Martin's life worse for daring to be who he really is feels so grossly sad. It has the pacing of a mystery thriller with the quality of a terrific psychological dramatic fiction. Keeps you turning the pages, wanting to know what´s going on exactly and how it will end, very well written, intrigued me from beginning to end. The author touches on a gamut of topics including obsession, loyalty, power, and class distinctions.

But Martin knows no one else can understand the bond they share - and no one else could have kept Ben's secret for over two decades.

But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M. Ben's 40th birthday party full of glitz and glamour is the venue to be seen at but things take a nasty turn. Tempers flare and loyalties fray when old friends gather for a lavish bash in the English countryside.The Party starts at the end of a story that began in public school some 30 years previously when we meet Martin Gilmour an outsider who wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School, he doesn’t wear the right attire or speak with the right kind of accent but then he meets the dazzling and wealthy Ben Fitzmaurice, and gets a taste of his exclusive world. At boarding school, he forms a crypto-homosexual attachment to Ben Fitzmaurice, the effortlessly charming son of a wealthy aristocratic family; they become “best friends”. A friend has not made a commitment, has not signed a contract or walked down the aisle and promised to love you until death do you part. There was no clear course of action, but the male consultant thought we “might as well give IVF a go”.

But instead of turning left down the corridor to join all the happy, exhausted new mothers and their mewling newborns, we peeled off to the right. Her acclaimed debut Scissors, Paper, Stone, won a Betty Trask Award and Home Fires was an Observer book of the year. La narración comienza con un interrogatorio en la comisaria por un supuesto accidente en la fiesta de cumpleaños de Ben, a partir de ahí se va desgranando toda la vida de los tres personajes y conocemos mejor a los tres, sus deseos, sus intereses, esa amistad que parecía superar todos los obstáculos y que resulta ser solo una pantalla. Indeed, much of the substance of this novel exists as undercurrents – with secrets, rumours, hidden emotions and loyalties.Todo ese ruido que se cuela en los silencios ocasionales; toda esa actividad frenética e incesante que llena cualquier espacio disponible con un torrente de tonterías. The really good script lines are dispersed among the excellent cast, although I do have a weakness for the role of Timothy Spall, such a great and modest actor, gripping the movie from the start onwards. Al final, las motivaciones subyacentes que guían el comportamiento de nuestros tres personajes principales se pueden intuir de forma bastante clara a medida que avanza el libro.

Life crises have a way of doing that: they strip you of your old certainties and throw you into chaos. The party was to celebrate Ben’s fortieth birthday, as well as being a house warming party for Ben, and his wife Serena’s, new home - the beautiful Tipworth Priory. Pero un hecho que traerá consecuencias años después les pasará factura y pondrá a ambos en el lugar que ocupan, hay un tercer personaje, Lucy, la mujer de Martin que tiene un papel importante en la narración. In January, I embarked on my first round, producing a single egg and one embryo, which failed to implant. This is her fourth and the press release offers comparisons to Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty.Initially, this area interested me only because I was dying to know what went on at the party, and why Martin, and no one else, was being questioned.