A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks

One of the wealthy elite in London decides to give a dinner party at the end of the week. This book follows the lives of some of the people invited to that party; from time to time their paths intersect, unknowingly. I find that intriguing because it must happen all the time in real life. Faulks does incredibly detailed research into the technology of things and this book has given him the opportunity to discover how hedge funds work and to explore the way big money movers operate just within the law. I found that part quite difficult to follow and skimmed over a lot of it. But there are also characters like an Islamic activist, a bitter and twisted literary reviewer, a rather bemused Polish football player and his porn star girlfriend Olya, and a lawyer who becomes involved with a woman who spends much of her time playing virtual reality games on her computer. The window into their thoughts and motivations is quite interesting. Having said all that, I’m not the biggest fan of Faulks – sometimes it all stalls a bit and I often come out of one of his novels feeling a not quite satisfied. This one, 3 stars.