History and Mystery Reads

Rating: 7/10

• Plot: The founder of an unusual spiritual society is found hanged in a canal house, and two Amsterdam detectives doubt it was suicide.
• Clues: Laid through interviews with the society’s members and the city’s drug trade.
• Reveal: Reasonable and surprisingly gentle; the solution matters less than the questions it raises.

Piet Verboom, head of a religious society in Amsterdam, is found hanging in the society’s headquarters. Adjutant Grijpstra and Sergeant de Gier are sent to investigate. Grijpstra is heavy, tired, and plays the drums. De Gier is handsome, vain and melancholy, with a cat he adores. Their superior, the Commissaris, suffers from rheumatism and is shrewd and kind.

Janwillem van de Wetering had an unusual life. He spent time in a Zen monastery in Kyoto, lived in several countries, and served in the Amsterdam special constabulary. That background shapes the series, which mixes police procedure with Zen humour and a sense that the world is absurd.

The Amsterdam of the 1970s is a vivid setting. The canals, bicycles, cafés, drugs and immigrant communities from the former Dutch colonies all appear. The detectives are tolerant and humane, uninterested in moralising.

The mystery itself is fairly slight, and the resolution may disappoint those who expect intricate puzzles. The book’s charm lies in its characters, its dialogue and its philosophical asides.

Some of the portrayal of immigrant communities is dated. The humour occasionally becomes whimsical.

The 7 reflects an original and likeable first novel in a series that became more unusual as it went on. It is a good introduction to a detective team that stands apart from the hard-boiled norms of the decade.