WHEN a Conservative MP decides to treat his mistress to a very different birthday gift, he sets in motion a chain of events which lead to her death and his downfall.

In spring 1990, MP Ivor Tesham begins an affair with the wife of a prominent charity worker. Hebe Furnal is bored with her humdrum life and finds the excitement she craves in her new secret relationship.

So when Ivor plans to have Hebe snatched from the roadside, bound and gagged and taken to a secret love nest, he knows she will see it as the ultimate in birthday presents.

How it all goes wrong, and the catastrophe's long-reaching consequences, are deftly interwoven to create the plot of this absorbing thriller by the author better known as Ruth Rendell.

A book for a cool autumn evening.