Hungry House Blues

風とRainbow

追いかけて　溢れ返る人の中で

閉ざされたその心の向こう

夢中でさがしてたね 

「風とRAINBOW」（Garnet Crow）

The wind and rainbow

Keep on following them among that mass of people

And beyond those closed hearts

You kept on searching, right?

"Wind and Rainbow" (Garnet Crow)

It's been a strange month where I found not one, but two old Dutch book gift certificates at home. Which really come in handy considering the relatively high Dutch book prices.

Having secured his house with window and door shutters, spotlights and cameras with motion sensors and telling next to nobody where he lived, Fred Duijster, big shot in the Dutch criminal underworld, probably was not expecting someone to just walk inside his house and slice him up. On the security footage, the police recognize Rafaël "Raaf" du Mez, a (self-proclaimed) reformed criminal with a history with the victim. While the police is working on sealing the deal by finding the last pieces of evidence to get Raaf in convicted, laywer Sjoerd Guikema is hired by Raaf's sister Elvira to save her brother. While Sjoerd tries his best at weakening the police's cases, and manages to find some weak spots, he realizes his only chance to get his client out of jail is to prove someone else could have pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of entering the victim's home without being captured on camera. And so police and defense try to outsmart each other in M.P.O. Books' Een afgesloten huis ("A Sealed House", 2013).

Een afgesloten huis is the eight book in Dutch mystery writer M.P.O. Books' District Heuvelrug series, set around several police divisions in the central Netherlands area. For the non-Dutchies, sorry, but the books are not available in English (yet?). Previously, I already reviewed De laatste kans and Cruise control. And as you might have noticed, I read the books in a rather random order, but both of them were quite entertaining. And given that Een afgesloten huis had a locked room murder premise (of sorts), I was quite curious as to how this would work out.

Like Carr's The Judas Window, Een afgesloten huis revolves about a murder in a sealed space that seemingly could only have been commited by one man, making it a locked room mystery, if you accept that the suspect is not the murderer. The plot of Een afgesloten huis keeps the investigation into the truth behind the murder interesting by moving the spotlight back and forth between the police (who are convinced Raaf is the murderer) and Sjoerd & Elvira (who try to find evidence of Raaf's innocence). The result is a story where both parts compete against each other and as both sides have their shares of (little) victories and losses, the reader is invited to keep on reading until the very end.

M.P.O. Books obviously likes this narrative technique of jumping between various parties, as he used it in all the stories I've read by him, and I have to admit that by now, it's feeling a bit forced, or too predictable at the least. Granted, as Een afgesloten huis follows a dual structure, jumping between narratives is necessary, but the biggest problem I have with this is that Books jumps way too often. Sometimes you read one page about character X, then it jumps to character Y for another page, only to jump back to character X again. The strange thing is; often there is little need for having to interrupt character X's narrative for one page of character Y. Sometimes, the next section starring character X starts at practically the same time & space as where the previous section with X ended, so why cut it up in two sections with an interruption? Because of that, the pacing of this book feels a bit strange, as you are forced to take speed bumps every other page. And while it's a problem some serialized novels have too (I look at you Rampo, sir), Een afgesloten huis is a paperback original, so it hasn't the excuse of different publication origins.

The parts with Sjoerd & Elvira are the most entertaining, as we follow the duo in their attempts to get Raaf out of detainment and solve the locked room murder mystery. The series is a police procedural, but personally, I prefer amateur detectives, so that explains that. The idea behind the locked room murder is okay, I think. It's a very simple solution that I doubt would have really worked in a story starring a Great Detective solving crimes like doing the newspaper puzzles, but it works well in the context of the series and the specific situation created here.

The trail leading to the identity of the murderer I thought less refined though. Like Cruise control, this novel features psychological clues among others, but they are so open for interpretation you might as well wave them away. Then again, by the end, after the main puzzle solving, Een afgesloten huis suddenly took a rather hardboiled way out, so maybe it was to be expected. Also, Cruise control will spoil a very significant part of Een afgesloten huis and you probably should read them in order, unlike me.

The mix of detecting couples, police procedural and locked room mystery works quite well in Een afgesloten huis and I think the book should appeal to Dutch readers wanting to read a classically inclined detective novel. I do have to admit that stylistically, I hope that other books will feature less narrative jumpiness, as at times it feels like it's only there to drag things out. But overall, a good read.

Original Dutch title(s): M.P.O. Books "Een afgesloten huis"

My Queer Dean!

I lose control 

春めく季節に まだ幼い瞳は終幕を恐れた

「浸食　lose control」（L'Arc~en~Ciel)

I lose control

In the spring-like season, my eyes, still young, were afraid of the end

"Erosion - Lose Control" (L'Arc~en~Ciel)

I don't really make it a rule of anything, but I think I've managed to write about at least one Dutch novel every year now. No idea whether more will follow this year though.

The discovery of a man shot between his eyes brings Chief-Inspector Gisella Markus to the Treekerpunt. The Treekerpunt, a recreational area once known for its natural beauty, had lately become infamous as a popular place for cruising gays to conduct different kinds of recreation. The victim was a well-known visitor of the area and examination shows he had intercourse before died. While Gisella keeps an open view on the case and makes no assumptions about the motive, her assistant Niels, a gay person himself, is convinced the murder was commited by someone with no-so-happy thoughts about homosexuals. The clashing opinions within the team about the murder, but also about the gay community seriously hamper the investigation and few discoveries have been made by the tme a second murder is commited on a gay person, exactly six weeks after the first murder in a similar place and style of execution. While still not convinced about the motive, Gisella realizes that a serial killer is on the loose whom her team might not be able to stop if they keep fighting each other in M.P.O. Books' 2014 novel Cruise Control.

Oh, and just so there's no confusion: this is a Dutch novel despite the title and it is not available in English (at the moment).

Cruise Control is the eight novel in Dutch authro M.P.O. Books' District Heuvelrug police procedurals, of which I've only read De Laatste Kans (you can find a lot more on the series at my collegue over at Beneath the Stains of Time). Little knowledge of the series is not a big problem though, as Cruise Control introduces a partially new cast, lead by Gisella Markus. While Bram Petersen still remains the main brains of the series (here in a guest armchair detective role), much of the novel is focused on Gisella and her team (also featuring several familiar faces from the series). There are quite some references to earlier novels, especially about the interaction between the characters, but nothing that feels too alienating. I do have to warn that there are (major) spoilers pertaining certain characters though, something hard to avoid as they all seem to develop throughout the books.

Cruise Control strikes a nice balance in the investigation into the murders as well as the rather problematic workings of the police team, as the topic of homosexuality seems to conjure up a variety of emotions within each member that don't work too well together. Obviously, the two topics are closely intertwined, but sometimes the book focuses more on the footwork, while at other times more on character interactions. It keeps the reader on their toes, though I did think the book to be a bit too long for its own good.

The investigation into the serial killing is great though. The book keeps you guessing at whether the murderer is 'simply' a gay-killer, someone trying to hide his true motives by posing as one or perhaps something complete else and little discoveries now and then help the story keep its momentum. A lot of serial killer stories in puzzle plot stories tend to turn into missing link stories, but Cruise Control isn't one formally. Still, the story is strongly rooted in fair-play puzzle plot tradition, with proper clues scattered across the book that point to the right person. Pesonally, I thought that one psychological hint was a bit weak (seriously, I think a lot of people would say that), but overall, I was quite pleased when the smokescreen disappated and all was explained. Oh, and bonus points for the book for having figures of the crime scenes.

This final point isn't about this book in particular, but Dutch books in general, but it's been a while since I bought a Dutch book and I'm still surprised at the prices. I can buy two, perhaps three Japanese pockets including shipping for the same price as one Dutch paperback...

Well, there's not left for me to say about M.P.O. Books' Cruise Control, but conclude that it is a solid puzzle plot detective novel. And as this is the latest novel, I guess all I can do is go back in the series, so expect more on the series somewhere in the future.

Original Dutch title(s): M.P.O. Books "Cruise Control"

Ashes to Ashes

いつでも捜しているよ どっかに君の姿を

交差点でも　夢の中でも 

こんなとこにいるはずもないのに

「One More Time, One More Chance」（山崎まさよし）

I'm always looking for a sign of you

Even at the intersection, even in my dreams

Even though you couldn't possibly be there

"One More Time, One More Chance" (Yamazaki Masayoshi) 

While I understand it's to protect the smaller novelists and publishers, I do always lament the fact the Netherlands has a rather rigid law for book prices. It's definitely a reason why I seldom buy Dutch books (and thus the law has the opposite effect in my case).

M.P.O. Books' De Laatste Kans ("The Last Chance", 2011) starts with the discovery of the body of Jacques Vermin, covered by his paternal ashes once held in the urn that killed him. The grotesque murder gives rise to several questions with Inspector Petersen and his team at the District Heuvelrug in central Netherlands. The obvious question is of course who did it, but other questions also keep the inspector busy: why was Jacques so determined to keep his residence in nature-filled Leersum a secret to practically everyone? How did he make his money? Is there a connection between his death and a lost child who was left somewhere down Jacques' street the night of his murder? Petersen leads his team of detectives in search for answers, but is not only having trouble with witnesses and other interested parties, his own team also serves as a hurdle to be taken as personal problems start to influence the effectiveness of the team and the investigation itself.

De Laatste Kans is the fifth novel in the District Heuvelrug series by Dutch writer M.P.O. Books. My colleague over at Beneath The Stains Of Time has written very often and praisingly on his blog about M.P.O. Books' series as a good, recent Dutch police procedural that actually invokes the spirit of the puzzle plots we so love, and I had been saying for years I would try reading one of the books. This is the first time I read something by Books by the way, but De Laatste Kans can be read without any knowledge of prior entries in the series.

The most memorable feature of the De Laatste Kans is the structure: the story constantly jumps between a very varied cast of characters, both the police and the suspects, giving you a glimpse in each of their minds. In videogames, this is usually referred to as a "zapping system", i.e. the reader is zapping between "channels" that each focus on a different character (games I discussed with a zapping system are: Machi, 428, Detective Conan: Marionette Symphony and Detective Conan: Phantom Rhapsody). The result is that De Laatste Kans seldom bores, as it keeps on giving the reader something different, without feeling chaotic or padded out. While there are more books that feature jumping between points of view, the fact it's all neatly organized through time-stamps really reminds me of the zapping systems of videogames.

The plot of De Laatste Kans was also surprisingly well-constructed. The book had a bit of bad luck: I was juggling between De Laatste Kans and another book that just happened to do something similar, so I realized who Jacques Vermin's murderer probably was very early on, but that didn't make De Laatste Kans any bit less fun: it is still a well-written detective story. One hint in particular was wonderfully done. A minor gripe I had was with some coincidences that led to the murder, but nothing game-breaking.

As I said, this is the fifth book in a running series and features a fairly wide cast starring Inspector Peterson and his team of detectives. It appears that these characters have been developed quite a lot in the run of the series, and the dynamics within the team is also a crucial part of De Laatste Kans. It never interferes with the puzzle plot and we're not talking about oh-woe-is-me-life-of-a-police-officer, but there is a good part of the novel about the people investigating the case. I guess that people who have been reading from the start will be more emotionally invested in the caracters, but even without really knowing these characters, De Laatste Kans strikes a good balance between the plot and its characters (and luckily in favor of the plot).

But for the Dutch readers here, De Laatste Kans is a recommended read as a fun detective novel that actually delivers. For the non Dutch-readers, alas, I don't think M.P.O. Books are available in English yet. Then again, most of the books I discuss are not available in English...

Original Dutch title(s): M.P.O. Books "De Laatste Kans"