The Internet Book Database of Fiction

#	Date	Publisher	Binding	Cover
1	1990-00-00	Avon Books

Blurb:: Summary (From the publisher):

Dame Muriel Spark delivers a delightfully alarming novel, full of high society and low cunning.

One October evening five posh London couples gather for a dinner party, enjoying "the pheasant (flambé in cognac as it is)" and waiting for the imminent arrival of the late-coming guest Hilda Damien, who has been unavoidably detained due to the fact that she is being murdered at this very moment…

Mixed in are a Monet, a mad uncle, some unconventional nuns, and a burglary ring run by a rent-a-butler. Symposium stars a perfectly evil young woman (a classic sweet-faced hair-raising Sparkian horror) who has married rich Hilda's son by hook or by crook, hooking him at the fruit counter of Harrod's. There is also spiritual conversation—and the Bordeaux is superb.