After recently enjoying the PBS series Van der Valk, I thought to revisit the work of the Amsterdam detective’s creator, the late British novelist Nicholas Freeling, whose European police procedurals I devoured decades ago. Though he did not consider himself a mystery or crime writer, but a “straight novelist.”
I dove into a later work, Flanders Sky, which I had not read, featuring the French police investigator Henri Castang, and rediscovered what had earlier drawn me to Freeling’s work. Psychological depth à la Simenon, sharp wit and raw humor, ample literary and philosophical allusions, complex characters from across social strata, and sardonic musings on European culture and politics elevate the novel. Castang, now a bureaucrat for the European Union and situated in Brussels with his Czech wife Vera, gets drawn into the violent death of a coworker’s spouse. A unique story of domestic jealousy with no pat answers but a lot to chew on.
This encouraged me to try another one of his later Castang novels, The Seacoast of Bohemia. A disappointment. An implausible and convoluted plot plus unconvincing characters with vague motivations. I will next go back to reread his first Van der Valk novel, Love in Amsterdam, to see how it holds up.
Further recommended Amsterdam cop fiction: Janwillem Van de Wetering’s crime series featuring Murder Brigade detectives Grijpstra and de Gier, quirky characters with Zen Buddhist influences. He wrote 13 such cop novels and numerous short stories before his death in 2008 at age 77. Also worth reading is Van de Wetering’s nonfiction account of his year in a Kyoto Zen monastery, The Empty Mirror.
Freeling books on Amazon: rb.gy/morxh0
Van de Wetering books on Amazon: rb.gy/z5hwxx
