In a dormitory-village in the Dutch countryside, an exclusive book-club is pressured into reading a new novel by a young woman who grew up amongst them. And, naturally, old wounds are reopened, and the members of the club — mostly lawyers and top civil servants — find themselves confronted with the moral consequences of their own actions.

It's a fun idea to shake the book-club out of its normal role as passive consumer of literature, and Februari gets some mileage out of the moral ambiguities of liberal western society in the early 21st century, but this otherwise struck me as an oddly tentative book, that keeps stepping back on the brink of going deeply into any of the main characters. An enjoyable, but slightly odd, mix of moral critique and superficial society novel. ( )

This was a story of a group of powerbrokers - bankers, legal, academics - who lived in a village outside Amsterdam and used the book club as a networking opportunity. The members had business relationships with many powerbrokers throughout the world and were able to use their influence to benefit themselves and to change policy in countries throughout the world. In this particular scenario the members were well aware of how 80 children in a third world country die after ingesting cough medicine which was contaminated. The owner of the business who sold the contaminated product was a well known member of the book club. Mysteriously all evidence linking him to the disaster disappeared and the parents of the children were unable to sue the company. Even though the others members of the book club were aware they did nothing to assist the grief stricken parents. They totally ignored the situation hoping it would just go aware. Things came to a head when the daughter of the disgraced business man wrote a book. This book was not easy to read however I persevered. I wonder how often this scenario actually happens in real life. More often that we think I am sure. ( )