Dutch novel The Dinner well-received by British reviewers

Best-selling Dutch novel Het Diner by Herman Koch has been released in an English translation to glowing reviews under the title The Dinner.

Koch’s psychological thriller centres on a dinner for two brothers and their wives at a fashionable restaurant where they discuss what to do about their 15-year-old sons, who are partners in crime.
The British newspapers are full of praise. The Independent calls it ‘cunning and theatrical novel’. The Financial Times says the novel threatens to drown in social satire but once it gets going Koch makes good use of ‘the themes of murder and heredity, sibling disputes and madness’.
The American rights to the novel were sold at auction to US publishing house Hogarth for a record ‘six-figure sum’ in January and will be published in 2013.
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