The premise is interesting---a story unfolding over the course of a dinner---but I'm not sure it worked well in practice. The narrator established himself as a liar fairly early on, and once I stopped believing him, I found I couldn't believe anything he said and was no longer invested in the story. I couldn't tell which were the narrator's lies and which were mistakes on the author's part. Even if the Dutch criminal justice system is ridiculously lenient, I can't imagine some of the things the narrator claims to have done just being brushed under the rug with no consequences. And what the heck kind of mental illness can be detected by amniocentesis? 
 It reminded me a little of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch; the reader couldn't trust anything that narrator was saying either. I liked Tartt's novel more than I did this one. It felt more like a puzzle, and I enjoyed trying to spot the lies, but both novels leave me wondering what the point was. I think that means that the novels are postmodern. I don't think I like postmodernism. At least The Dinner wasn't as long as The Goldfinch.