I have lived in the Netherlands and I found the Dutch setting of this book well conveyed - touches of authenticity abound in the descriptions of the geography of Amsterdam, the behaviour of the people and the linguistic references.
The winter climate really inserts gritty reality into the events - the cold, the messiness of city snow and its beauty are integral to the story. Sue Rann has some good imagery, for example - a brown cafe is described as at the beige end. I liked her wit when she includes the irony of Zwarte Piet, the nonpolitically correct Dutch pantomime figure of a black man who punishes the bad children while St Nikolaas rewards the good at Christmas. Within a short time the book pulls you in to a thriller scenario. At the beginning the experiences of two characters alternate as each faces progressively more bizarre and frightening situations. Robin is an American expatriate with a military past who is scraping a living - she teaches martial arts and is a part-time bouncer. Wolf can remember nothing before he was treated for gunshot wounds several months previously and he is living on the streets. Both have various acquaintances - some are weird, others apparently normal. Obviously they provide a rich vein of possibilities as the tale turns and twists. There is a significant cyber/scifi aspect to events.
I suppose that Amsterdam and drugs do seem to go together in most people’s minds so the appearance of a drug connection is not surprising. As this is a good thriller the offbeat nature of this connection is also not surprising. As events develop the leading characters get more and more battered by their experiences - a feature of thrillers that we all recognise. The screwing up of the tension tightens as the book goes along - the leading characters are appealing in their weaknesses and we care what happens to them and they have been so solidly rooted in Amsterdam.
This is a good read - a book with depth as well as an offbeat thriller.
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Jennifer S. Palmer This is Sue Rann’s first crime novel though, according to
her publisher, she has written science fiction under the pseudonym, Mercy Falconer.