Summer House with Swimming Pool: A Novel
Product Description <br/>The blistering, compulsively readable new novel from Herman Koch, author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Dinner<br/>When a medical procedure goes horribly wrong and famous actor Ralph Meier winds up dead, Dr. Marc Schlosser needs to come up with some answers. After all, reputation is everything in this business. Personally, he’s not exactly upset that Ralph is gone, but as a high profile doctor to the stars, Marc can’t hide from the truth forever.<br/>It all started the previous summer. Marc, his wife, and their two beautiful teenage daughters agreed to spend a week at the Meier’s extravagant summer home on the Mediterranean. Joined by Ralph and his striking wife Judith, her mother, and film director Stanley Forbes and his much younger girlfriend, the large group settles in for days of sunshine, wine tasting, and trips to the beach. But when a violent incident disrupts the idyll, darker motivations are revealed, and suddenly no one can be trusted. As the ultimate holiday soon turns into a nightmare, the circumstances surrounding Ralph’s later death begin to reveal the disturbing reality behind that summer’s tragedy.<br/>Featuring the razor-sharp humor and acute psychological insight that made The Dinner an international phenomenon, Summer House with Swimming Pool is a controversial, thought-provoking novel that showcases Herman Koch at his finest.<br/> Review <br/>“Once again Koch shows us, in that keen, almost icy style, how easy it is for successful people to go haywire.” —Glamour<br/>“A funny and sharp-edged litany.” —Elsevier<br/>“After the delirious success of The Dinner, Herman Koch’s exciting new novel, Summerhouse with Swimming Pool, addresses ethical issues in a delicious way.” —Red<br/>“The cunning game with the unreliable narrator alone makes Summerhouse with Swimming Pool worth reading. The reading pleasure is also increased by the impressively maintained suspense.” —Financieele Dagblad<br/>“This is a novel of ideas (Have fun, book clubs)…[Koch] makes Nietzsche sound like Dale Carnegie.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times<br/>“Caustic…Poisonous…I couldn’t stop reading this…. Chapter by chapter, it is shockingly cynical and infected with a strain of humor so toxic that it should come with a bottle of Purell…. Ghoulishly fascinating.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post<br/>“The opening pages grab us with a mordant view of socialized medicine and a chilled insight into the anxieties of the flesh… Disturbingly good…Psychologically rich…Deftly paced…. Compelling.” —USA Today<br/>“Summerhouse with Swimming Pool is a gripping read, an assault of unexpected twists and thumbscrew-turning tension.” —Entertainment Weekly<br/>“Sick, twisted—and more important—highly entertaining…. Balmy temperatures and sunny skies won’t stop the chill that runs up and down your spine as the story unfolds…. A modern-day Agatha Christie…. [This] could be the most talked-about book of the summer.” —Chicago Tribune<br/>“Bound to satisfy fans of The Dinner…. A new psychological thriller about nasty people on an opulent vacation.” —Boston Globe<br/>“Twisty, thrilling.” —New York Post<br/>“There are all kinds of scary novels, and this one, out of the Netherlands, Herman Koch’s Summerhouse with Swimming Pool is perhaps the most unsettling sort. It’s devilish…. You’ll be hooked.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<br/>“Gripping…Koch uses language like a stethoscope, so that we can hear the beating hearts of his characters and their visceral feelings of envy, love, fear and hatred…. The novel anatomises our most unsavoury impulses with scalpel-like prose…. For fans of thrillers such as Gone Girl, this should be the summer’s essential reading.” —The Guardian<br/>“This book is horribly thrilling, and utterly entertaining. There is a manic clarity and gleefulness to its writing…. Take this book to the beach, you’ll be gripped and chilled.” —The Independent<br/>“In Koch’s equally devious follow-up to The Dinner, civilization is once again only a thin cover-up for man’s baser instincts…. Make no mistake