Love in Amsterdam (Van der Valk #1)

I gave this book three stars because of the author’s elegant use of the English language. Sad to say, the story content Isn’t of the same quality. The first, roughly, third of the book consists of Van der Valk questioning an individual he believes innocent of the crime of murder, but locks him up anyway. We next have the “non-suspect”s lengthy description of his relationship with the victim, followed by another lengthy question by a magistrate who also doubts the man’s culpability, finally releasing him on his own recognizance. The final perhaps ten percent of the book identifies the killer, a person who, up to that point, had not appeared in the story, and whose motive is never made completely clear. On the other hand, the Masterpiece Mystery presentation of the same title bears no resemblance to any portion of the book but is far-and-away more suspenseful and exciting, but, alas, without the elegant English.

This was or is the first in a series of maybe twelve Van Der Valk mysteries. They’re set in Amsterdam in the 1960s.PBS recently ran a three installment TV series on Van der Valk. Amazon Kindle is sort of pricey for the Van Der Valk novels ao I’ll wait until the local library reopens after the pandemic and red some more of them.

It was about 95% talk, and then there were a few pages of action at the end. I found all the characters to be unsympathetic. The translation included obscure references where I had to think back 40 years for what was being discussed. The translator assumed that the reader had a smattering of both French and Dutch. And it assumed that the reader had a general idea of a map of Amsterdam..
I gave up 2/3 of the way through and went to the end and even there I found little to interest me.
I am amazed that such unpromising material could be turned into action TV.

This book has its moments in particular the parts about the early affair between Martin and Elsa. A short read but not satisfying.

I really enjoyed the book.

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