The Dinner is a deliciously disturbing read that tells the length that some of us will go to protect our children. ~ Sheila
It is a lovely summers eve in Amsterdam and Paul and Claire Lohman are meeting Paul’s brother and his wife for dinner. Paul’s brother, Serge is well on his way to being Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Paul finds his brother to be full of himself and cringes at the thought of spending dinner at a restaurant where everyone will be watching them and treating them like royalty.
But there are bigger things to discuss at dinner.
Each of the two couples have a 15-year-old son and through appetizers to dessert it will become clear that the two boys have been involved in a horrific act involving the death of a homeless woman. Some of the guests at this table know all about it… others are just starting to figure out what happened. Through forced politeness and forks full of delicious food, this family tries to unite on what the right thing to do is…
and are they willing to do it.
I have been wanting to read this book for a while now – since I first heard about it. First of all it is a foodie type book and I do love my foodie books. It is also very intriguing that the entire book is set around this one dinner. Told through flash backs and present time, from pleasant chit-chat around the subject of politics, menu choices, family and then…
We need to talk about our children.
I really enjoyed this book on audio. Narrators Sam Garrett and Clive Mantle were appropriately chilling in their telling of this story that is fed to the reader/listener forkful by forkful. I am glad I listened to it on audio, I feel it gave the story line a higher level of understanding and I especially enjoyed having the story unfold from Paul’s perspective.
Witty and a bit dangerous ( a little bit of a Jo Nesbo tamed down feel)… I did enjoy The Dinner.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 55 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: AudioGO
- Audible.com Release Date: February 13, 2013
This is probably a stretch but I really want to connect this review to Weekend Cooking over at Beth Fish Reads. 😀 It wasn’t really cooking… but it was foodie and it was listened to over the weekend 😀
Book Journey 