It's late spring of 1990 and a love affair is flourishing: between Ivor Tesham‚ a thirty-three year old rising star of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government‚ and Hebe Furnal‚ a stunning North London housewife stuck in a dull marriage. What excitement Hebe lacks at home‚ however‚ is amply compensated for by the well-bred and intensely attractive Tesham - an ardent womaniser and ambitious politican. On the eve of her twenty-eighth birthday‚ Tesham decides to give Hebe a present to remember: something far more memorable than‚ say‚ the costly string of pearls he's already lavished upon her. Involving a fashionable new practice known as 'adventure sex'‚ a man arranges for his unsuspecting but otherwise willing girlfriend to be snatched from the street‚ bound and gagged‚ and delivered to him at a mutually agreed venue... Set amidst an age of IRA bombings‚ the first Gulf War‚ and sleazy politics‚ THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT is the gripping story of a fall from grace‚ and of a man who carries within him all the hypocrisy‚ greed and self-obsession of a troubled era.