The Party by Elizabeth Day: book review

The Party (2017) is set in Oxfordshire, England, in May 2015.

Something happened at Ben Fitzmaurice’s 40th birthday party in Tipworth Priory, where there were hundreds of high-society guests.

Thirty-nine-year-old Martin Gilmour and his wife Lucy attended Ben’s party. Martin has been Ben’s best friend since school days – ‘Ben’s little shadow’ – LS.’ Yet Martin feels like an outsider. Martin doesn’t fit into Ben’s wealthy, exclusive world. But Ben had become the brother Martin never had.

Martin is a chameleon, changing his personality and clothes to fit each situation. Lucy was always the epitome of politeness, but Martin had noticed a recent ‘cutting tone.’

Martin had a secret about Ben, something that kept them closely connected for the past 25 years. At the party, Ben has a secret about Martin.

Then there is the incident at the party. Will Martin tell the police about Ben, or will Ben tell the police about Martin? As Lucy knows, Ben and his wife Serena had a specifc reason for wanting her and Martin at the house before the party: ‘They had a game plan.’

Through flashbacks, and Lucy’s written response to the police investigation, readers learn about Martin and Ben’s long friendship. They also learn about Ben’s wife Serena, Ben’s sister Felicity (Fliss), Andrew Jarvis, Vicky Dillane, and Gilly Rawlings.

This is a novel about a long unbalanced but entangled friendship, loyalty and betrayal, privilege and envy, arrogance and hypocrisy. Although slow in parts, the novel will sustain readers to the end.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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