Journal Entry 1 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Sunday, February 22, 2004

The eleventh novel in van de Wetering's excellent "Amsterdam Cops" series, featuring the unhappily married Adjutant Detective Grijpstra and his vain, cat-loving assistant, Detective Sergeant Rinus de Gier. These books combine van de Wetering's Buddhism, the hippie consciousness and sexual politics of 1970s Amsterdam and the more traditional elements of police procedurals to make for an interesting, quirky read -- I'm definitely committed to reading the whole series.

(For compulsives like myself, who prefer to read mysteries in the order in which they were written, here's the whole "Amsterdam Cops" series: Outsider in Amsterdam; Tumbleweed; The Corpse on the Dike; Death of a Hawker; The Japanese Corpse; The Blond Baboon; The Maine Massacre; The Mind-Murders; The Streetbird; The Rattle-Rat; Hard Rain; The Sergeant's Cat & Other Stories; Just a Corpse; The Hollow-Eyed Angel; and The Perfidious Parrot.) 

Journal Entry 2 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Saturday, March 10, 2007

Wealthy banker Martin IJsbreker is found dead in his expensively renovated heritage home in Amsterdam's Binnenkant. Chief Inspector Halba, newly appointed to the Murder Squad from Narcotics, quickly dismisses his death as a suicide, notwithstanding that three young people ("junkies") overdosed on a houseboat moored immediately across the street from IJsbreker's home on the same night. Halba, who is subordinate to the commisaris but superior in rank to Grijpstra and de Gier, seems to be covering up for someone. But before Gripstra, de Gier and the commissaris can figure out who, each is unceremoniously relieved of his duties on the Murder Squad.

The "mystery" in this murder mystery is never much of a secret at all, but the book contained lots of good character development, especially of the aging commissaris and his grumpily indulgent wife Katrien. At the end of Hard Rain a disillusioned de Gier has left Amsterdam -- and turned his back on his position with the police force -- to travel to New Guinea. Is he gone from the series for good? 

Journal Entry 3 by goatgrrl at STARBUCKS 6TH & 6TH in New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Saturday, March 10, 2007

Released 5 yrs ago (3/10/2007 UTC) at STARBUCKS 6TH & 6TH in New Westminster, British Columbia Canada

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

I'll be leaving this book on a table in Starbucks some time before noon tomorrow. Best wishes and happy reading to whomever picks it up.