Janwillem van de Wetering (1931–2008)

A recluse who lived like a slob despite having a home crammed full of valuable antiques is found dead, shot between the eyes by someone with the skills of a professional marksman. The most likely suspect appears to be the man's lesbian neighbor, who may have been jealous of her beautiful housemate's interest in the man and who also had the skills necessary to pull off the shot.

This book wasn't a good fit for me at all. I don't know where I got the willpower necessary to finish it, but somehow I managed it.

It seems that this may have at least partly been a cultural issue - this excellent review on Goodreads explains how Grijpstra and De Gier's policing style incorporates the Dutch concept of gezelligheid. I could definitely tell that they had a more laid-back approach to policing than I expected, and I recall being intrigued by the negative way characters, even (especially?) police officers, responded to things phrased as orders.

That said, this book made for excruciatingly slow reading, and I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters (in fact, I had trouble remembering which one was Grijpstra and which one was De Gier most of the time). I haven't read the previous two books in the series, but I don't think that was as much of an issue as the characters' overall attitude. It probably didn't help that the way the various police characters leered at female witnesses made my skin crawl. The best part was when this hilariously backfired on De Gier and left him stranded without gas, stuck with an annoying child and a troublesome woman.

Not a series I plan on revisiting.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (lisätietoja)

I read this last spring--last winter, if you don't live in Ireland--and so don't trust myself to give an accurate summary of it. But half a year later it's still the funniest book I've read this year and I actually feel sure it will amuse me just as much when I read it again. An intelligent book, too: What an author less clever would have presented as broadly humourous is in Rattle-Rat absurdly comic instead. Possibly unlikely to appeal to devotees of detective stories as though plot is beneath it all strong enough and characters are distinct one from the others, both elements are part of s lark.… (lisätietoja)