About Books: ‘The Dinner Party’ is a compelling mystery that will keep you reading

This is a compelling mystery that takes place in the author’s home state in South Australia. It is about a 40-year-old cold case of a child who went missing when four couples from their suburban neighborhood came together for a dinner party on a summer evening in 1979. The couples leave their children home alone asleep in their beds. After all, it is a safe neighborhood. Designated dads check on the children periodically through the night. Despite these regular checks, four-month-old Meghan Callaghan is found missing. Who took her and why? Is she still alive?

The main characters are Amanda, the sister of the missing child, and her two daughters, Billie and Eve. Amanda has spent her life consumed with the search for her baby sister. She has never given up hope of finding Meghan. She has founded the Meghan Callaghan Foundation as well as the Callaghan Baby Podcast, a podcast that reveals interviews with people involved with the case over the years. Amanda’s obsession with the case has impacted the children and grandchildren of the dinner party people, a party that is now known as the “dinner party from hell.” The couples who are interviewed over the years stick to their original stories. Amanda’s daughter Billie is convinced someone knows something.

On the 40th anniversary of Meghan’s disappearance, a woman named Donna, comes to Amanda’s door and claims to be Meghan. She is able to provide several things to prove her claim, including Meghan’s baby blanket. Amanda’s daughter Billie is suspicious and sets out to investigate this woman’s story. She is convinced that the couples from the party have something to hide and haven’t told the truth in forty years. Tension grows among family members as Amanda wants to believe that Donna is her sister, but Billie wants to protect her mother from an imposter. In the end, Bille and the podcast are able to reveal a multitude of secrets from the past.

The desire to find out what happened to Meghan is what kept me reading this book. There are many characters introduced in the beginning of the book which were difficult to keep straight. I had trouble relating to any of them although I thought Billie was the strongest and most likable. As a novel, I think it is forgettable, but it might make a good TV movie.

And please, if nothing else, don’t ever leave your children alone at night to party next door!