The Hidden Inheritance

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces

Charles Lamb

So it doesn't happen often I buy (new) Dutch mystery novels, as I'm usually looking for older (used) books, but today's book, this one I decided to order from my local bookshop. Of course, I didn't know when I clicked the order button that day, that had I simply ordered it from a webshop, I'd have had the book delivered to my home the next day, while via the brick-and-mortar bookshop, it took three full days, and most of the fourth (I was notified the book was ready for pick-up near closing time). That's a pretty drastic difference in delivery time.

In 2015-2016, I reviewed a few novels by M.P.O. Books, a Dutch mystery writer who writes puzzle plot mysteries set in contemporary Netherlands. I found his books quite enjoyable, so I was also pleased to learn that he had also started writing short mystery stories under the name Anne van Doorn, as personally, I'm more a fan of the short, rather than the long form. It took me a long time to actually get started on the Anne van Doorn stories however. The stories were first released as individual e-books, which again is not a form I like (yes, I sound incredibly picky now). Hardcopy volumes were released later: De geliefde die in het veen verdween en andere mysteries (2017) and De bergen die geen vergetelheid kennen en andere mysteries (2018) each collected five stories. But in spring 2019, a new hardcopy volume was released to replace these two earlier releases, collecting the first ten stories in Anne van Doorn's Robbie Corbijn series: De mysteries van Robbie Corbijn ("The Mysteries of Robbie Corbijn", 2019) introduces the reader to Robbie Corbijn, owner and head investigator of the private investigation agency Research & Discover, located in the city of Leiden. Corbijn is an ex-cop, who now specializes in (c)old cases the police won't work on anymore. Recently, he has hired Lowina de Jong (narrator) as an assistant-prospective partner in the business. At first, Lowina thought the job was rather uneventful and unrewarding, as there's usually a perfectly good reason why the police didn't manage to solve the case first (there's nothing more to be done, not even by Research & Discover), but occasionally, Lowina's boss shows he's actually really good at the job, solving baffling cases like a locked room murder dressed as suicide and other cases which would've been unsolved if not for Corbijn's interference.

In the introduction, van Doorn says the inspiration for these stories came from classic mystery fiction like Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Baroness Orczy and yep, that's quite clear right from the start. Sure, the stories are set in contemporary, modern Dutch society, but the tricks being played here and some of the background settings are what you'd expect from classical puzzle plot mysteries, and sometimes even slightly older mystery fiction. Locked room murders, people dressing up as other people because that was super-easy in the 1910s-1920s if I were to believe all the mystery fiction I read, Dramatic Background Stories That Serve As Even More Dramatic Murder Motives, you know the drill. If you're a fan of the authors mentioned, you're certainly at the right place with this volume, though I also have to note that sometimes, things will feel too familiar. In fact, as I was reading through the book, often I'd think "well, this story, this one was obviously inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle", or another by Christie etc. I think it would've worked better if this would happen occasionally, but for example in this volume, basically half of the stories feel distinctly Conan Doyle-ish, which is a shame, because it constantly makes me think of the Holmes stories, rather than just of Robbie Corbijn.

The opening story is perhaps the least Doylish though. In De dichter die zichzelf opsloot ("The Poet Who Locked Himself In"), Corbijn is hired to investigate the death of Albert Meijer, a not-so-succesful poet and recluse locked in an unhappy marriage. The man spent his days in his log cabin out in the woods behind his house, a lifestyle he maintained even when his wife would go abroad for months to spend a long holiday. One day, the remains of Meijer were found inside his cabin, apparently shot by the shotgun lying next to him. With a locked door and a postcard from his wife from her holiday address saying she wouldn't give him even a penny anymore, it seems the poet committed suicide, but his son believes his stepmother committed the crime somehow and wants Corbijn to investigate. The problem of the tale revolves around how murder could've been committed, considering the log cabin had been locked from the inside. I like the idea behind this locked room, which is essence an idea that you occasionally see in more mechanically-inclined locked room stories, though executed in a completely different scale. The actual execution in this story however relies so much on coincidence and hindsight logic in order for it all to work out the way it did. Not only did a certain object needed to be available at that certain time, there was no compelling reason for the culprit to gamble and go through all the trouble, merely on the chance that they'd be succesful in creating the locked room. The culprit would also needed to have knowledge of certain facts, or simply gamble on the fact others wouldn't know, which seems really weird considering all the things they'd need to do to create this locked room. I do like the way how Corbijn first surmised what the real deal was behind the locked room mystery, a subtle but clever clue that is so easily missed.

Let's say the first story was more Carr-inspired than the Conan Doyle, Christie and Orczy from the introduction. Het meisje dat bleef rondhangen ("The Girl Who Remained") too is perhaps better categorized here then. Corbijn is hired to investigate a series of accidents on a lonely country road with a slight curve adorned by trees. Some weeks ago, someone crashed into the trees with his car, but before the driver lost conciousness, he asked whether the girl was okay. Apparently, he believed a girl had been standing in the road, which is why he drove into the trees. The problem: there had been no girl on the road, as per testimony of the two witnesses who saw the whole accident happen. The queer thing is that the same accident had happened some years before, with the driver trying to avoid a person who hadn't been there. Corbijn and Lowina learn that many years ago, a girl was run over on that road, and her mother (who lives near the road) still believes her girl haunts the place. The story with the most atmosphere of the whole volume, but the solution to the identity of the ghost is more practical than inventive, with a rather mundane explanation. The why is perhaps more important, but due to the rather small cast of characters (of whom the culprit really stands out like a sore thumb), the motive can be guessed rather easily.

In Het joch dat grenzen overschreed ("The Brat Who Went Too Far"), Corbijn is hired by a lawyer (who has a rather familiar-sounding name...) to clear the name of Geertruida Smelinck, who has been convicted for the murder on her nine-year old neighbor Ward, the Dennis the Menace of the cul-de-sac street of only three houses, all inhabitated by people who carried their share of pain in life. Ward was found dead in the garden of Geertruida, with a metal rod sticking from his body, and given the fact Ward had stolen her apples last year too, it was believed she had killed the boy in a rage for attempting to do the same this year. As Corbijn and Lowina visit the street again, asking the neighbor who lived between Geertruida and Ward about that day and reconstructing the movements of Ward, Corbijn realizes he might have a chance at overturning the verdict. This story is less 'mechanically' inclined compared to the previous two stories I mentioned, and perhaps also less intricate in terms of what really happened (the focus lies more on the unveiling, I think), though the story itself is perhaps more enjoyable as an actual "story", with more attention to character background. The real truth behind Ward's death is simple and not particularly shocking. In terms of dynamics, it also reminds me of a certain episode in a popular mystery videogame (which may well be sheer coincidence), but once you think of that game, it's very easy to guess what happened here.

De arts die de weg kwijt was ("The Doctor Who Lost His Way") is a distinctly Doylish story, reminsicent of The Greek Interpreter. In this story, a newly installed doctor is called out in the middle of the night for an emergency with one of his patients, but when he arrives at the house in The Hague, he finds not his patient waiting for him on the second floor of the building, but a woman who was shot and two men who seem to be up to no good. He is threatened by the men to help the woman, and afterwards is knocked out. The doctor awakens the next morning inside his own car (car keys inside) parked near Scheveningen Beach. He informs the police about the shot woman and they go to the house again, but he is shocked to find his real patient there, not the shot woman and the men. Considering the doctor was found inside his own car with his keys inside, the police thinks he probably came up with a cock-and-bull story about the shot woman for his wife to hide some affair, but the doctor needs to know what happened and asks Corbijn to help him. Both the problem of the disappearing house and the locked car are serviceable, but not particularly memorable. The car problem is barely a variant on a very classic locked room trick, so hardly impressive, while the problem with the house is... basically what you'd guess first.

De boerin die niet wilde sterven ("The Farmer's Wife Who Didn't Want to Die") too invokes Doyle (The Copper Beeches), with a private nurse having doubts about her new post, where she has to live on a remote farm to take care of a farmer's wife. Some specific working conditions like not only living on the farm, but not even being allowed to go outside, not even for a fresh breather, save for her day off seem odd, as is the fact her post seems to be screened. The story follows the familiar Victorian thriller thread all the way to the end, and is hardly a puzzle plot mystery. De bergen die geen vergetelheid kennen ("The Mountains That Know No Oblivion") has Corbijn telling Lowina about the time a colleague wanted Corbijn for a second opinion. The case was a really cold one, as it happened in Albania in 1933. Deep in the mountains, the blood vendetta between clans is law, and in 1933, this blood vendetta hit a climax when a woman was shot inside a small attic room on top of a kulla e ngujimit, a tower especially built so people could lock themselves in when a blood vendetta would rear its ugly head again. There was only a small window in the attic room, but you'll only find a river a far way below that window, so it's unlikely she was shot through the window, yet the other people in the kulla heard her speak with her assailant right before she was shot, yet they found nobody else in the attic room. The long-running family fued plot invokes Victorian fiction of course, but the solution is basically borrrowed exactly from another, fairly famous mystery story and even with the new setting, it's not really one of my favorites. De dame die niet om hulp had gevraagd ("The Lady Who Didn't Ask For Help") too is distinctly Doylish, with Corbijn telling Lowina about the time he was still with the police force, about a woman who'd always call the police but would deny having done so every time they arrived at her home. The solution lies in the psat, but this is more Victorian revenge melodrama than puzzle plot, I'd say.

De geliefde die in het veen verdween ("The Loved One Who Disappeared in the Bog") on the other hand is more distinctly Christie-esque (or Baroness Orczy-esque, perhaps). Corbijn is asked by their neighbor to help her niece, whose boyfriend Eickhout disappeared more than six years ago. Her boyfriend was a project developer who loved to hike, which he last did in the Belgian Ardennes. He had actually been in Belgium to pick up his engagement ring, as he planned to propose after his return, making this a full tragedy. It was thought by the police had been Eickhout 'spirited away' by some of criminal associates, as on that fateful day, several people had seen the hiking Eickhout being followed by a shady figure and it's believed Eickhouts body is now somewhere in the bogs. The client hopes that even if Eickhout's dead, she should at least give him a proper burial, so she hopes Corbijn can at least figure out what happened on that day. Like I said this story feels more like Christie, as much of the story depends on direct misdirection and making witnesses believe in certain patterns or happenings, simply because it seems likely that was what happened. As Corbijn shows, once you stop assuming things however, it can be easy to figure out what really happened. This story is fairly easy to solve once you let go of these assumptions, resulting in a story that feels very much like one of those Miss Marple shorts.

In a way, two other stories work on the same principle. De vluchteling die alles achterliet ("The Refugee Who Left Everything Behind") is about the disappearance of a Bosnian refugee, and the disappearance of Susanne Westera one day earlier from the island of Terschelling. The two were determined to have had a relation, and it is assumed they disappeared together, though it's a mystery how Susanne managed to get of the island completely unseen. Now many years later, her father is terminally ill and he wants Corbijn to give him closure on what happened to his daughter. The story is nicely plotted and like the best of Christie's short efforts, depends on the notion of the witnesses and the reader willing to assume things at face value and probably succeeding in that feat even though the reader's already warned. That is perhaps also a problem though, as Het hoertje dat geen spoor achterliet ("The Hooker Who Didn't Leave a Trace") is technically a good mystery story, but by the time you get to this story, it's so easy to guess what was going on. Marliende Vries, better known as the erotica author Patricia de Rooth, was caught and sentenced for murdering her husband, having caught him together with a prostitute in a room of a shady hotel. The evidence suggests Marliende shot her husband, though there's also the problem of the one witness (the prostitute) having run away. Marliende's brother however does not believe in his sister's guilt and wants Corbijn to find the real murderer so Marliende will be released. But like with Baroness Orczy's The Old Man in The Corner however, the solution is hardly shocking considering the underlying principle has been used multiple times already in the same volume.

De mysteries van Robbie Corbijn was an entertaining volume of Dutch puzzle plot mysteries that at one hand, is adequately plotted and written, but at times also feels too much like the stories that inspired the author. Compared to the books written under the M.P.O. Books name, these ten stories are definitely more pleasing to the puzzle plot story reader with more focused plotting, but these stories are also a lot less surprising, as they often feel too familiar in terms of structure, especially when read one after another. I'm definitely interested in reading future stories, though I guess I'll have to wait for the hardcopy version again (and of course hope that hypothetical volume won't be replaced by an even more hypothetical volume that has more stories for about the same price...)

Original Dutch title(s): Anne van Doorn De mysteries van Robbie Corbijn: 'De dichter die zichzelf opsloot' / 'De geliefde die in het veen verdween' / 'De arts die de weg kwijt was' / 'Het joch dat grenzen overschreed' /  'De vluchteling die alles achterliet' / 'De boerin die niet wilde sterven' / 'Het meisje dat bleef rondhangen' /  'De bergen die geen vergetelheid kennen' / 'Het hoertje dat geen spoor achterliet' / 'De dame die niet om hulp had gevraagd'