In our large family home on a peaceful, tree-lined street, I clear away the breakfast things whilst my husband ignores me, his eyes on his phone. Given her family background — she is the granddaughter of the KGB agent Kim Philby — one might expect this to be a spy novel, and there are traces of that, including smooth oligarchs, embassy parties and covert rendezvous in Moscow.

As a child, Emma would watch the grand Corbett parties through the windows and from the trees, catching only glimpses of the gowns and glamour inside. While this is a significant novel and one that should be read for its daring and originality, it is also a bit of a burden.Read the book and watch the brilliant Anthony Minghella’s eponymous film starring Matt Damon as Ripley.

Soon Ripley's fascination with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie's ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.Unable to understand what took place, she has spent the last 30 years questioning where her father is and how he could have committed such a crime. Take Stieg Larsson’s best seller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” which lingers unbearably, for pages and pages, over the description of Lisbeth’s rape.