Love in Amsterdam Book

First impressions are often unreliable, but I just couldn't wait to tell you about this author. I believed he was from the Netherlands, since he writes about a detective from Amsterdam and pretends to know all the inside stuff only a native would know and throws in lots of Dutch words. But he's from England. He's apparently traveled widely in Europe, and now lives in France. So you see what I thought was a very poor translation from Dutch to British English is just very poor British English with lots of Dutch words thrown in willy-nilly.

This was supposed to be a classic of the genre. It was written in 1962, and is part of a large series of similar mysteries involving Dutch detective Inspector van der Valk which have been most popular. But by the time I reached page 22, I couldn't take any more.


The scene on page 22 is this: the fake-Dutch detective and his murder suspect are in the morgue for identification of the body. At the end of a page of useless and annoying description which gets them from the front door of the building and through the reception area, commenting continuously on trivial observations such as how thin the receptionist's legs are as compared to her too-long hands and feet, I came to the following paragraph. "A corridor, full of doors. Two or three obvious laboratory technicians glancing incuriously as they went on accustomed, undramatic, errands. The smell of formaldehyde was stronger. Another door, swinging on bronze hinges with an effortless, noiseless lunge like a huge mouth opening." This man would not know a sentence if it bit him in the bum, and his "door lunging like a mouth opening" analogy is not to be tolerated.

As worthy as this writing is for ridicule, the insight into human behavior is even worse. I don't believe I'll go any further with this review or with the book. It's too awful, and life is too short.