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  • Location: Amsterdam

The House of Dolls (Detective Pieter Vos)

The House of Dolls (Detective Pieter Vos)

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: A young girl disappears in mysterious circumstances in Amsterdam – could an innocent looking dolls house in the Rijksmuseum have links to the case and maybe that of one years ago?

  • ISBN: 978-1447246176
  • Genre: Crime

What you need to know before your trail

Pieter Vos used to be a detective and now lives on a houseboat in the Amsterdam neighbourhood of the Jordaan. Three years ago, his daughter disappeared in mysterious circumstances and despite a desperate search he has never found her. He spends time in the Rijksmuseum looking at a dolls house that he is convinced is linked to the case when he gets news of another missing girl who has apparently disappeared in avery similar circumstances to his own girl.
Should he reenter this dark world and what will he find if he does?

Travel Guide

Well if it’s location you’re looking for then this book has got it in bucket loads as this is a great read to bring the city of Amsterdam to life – not just the streets but the ambience, the dark corners, the bridges over the fog covered canals..

Amsterdam hosts many shady characters in this book and the gangland and red light areas are also explored. Whilst they won’t be on any tourist map soon, they show the city in many mysterious and intriguing ways. wonder what Laura, the trainee detective who first tells Pieter of this latest disappearance makes of it really since she is considered somewhat of a country bumpkin having come from a remote place  – Friesland – in the north of the country.

The Rijksmuseum and the ‘house of dolls’

This has to be your first port of call for any booktrail. What could this small strange miniature house of dolls mean?

“The dolls’s house of Petronella Oortman was complex and a good head taller than Pieter Vos, An Amsterdam canal mansion in miniature.”

The daughter of Wim Prins, a leading city politician, has been kidnapped and  working from the city hall, his background may have something to do with it since he is working on a crackdown in the sex and drugs trade.

Meanwhile the policeman Vos lives on a canal boat in Jordaan and to walk along the Eland Canal and see the various boats on the water shows the heart of the city – the canals and the way people lived and still do. The bridges, the bicycles all add to the overall atmosphere and show the city’s beating pulse.

“The canal was watching him. Listening. Waiting”

Prinsengracht

The courthouse on the Prinsengracht takes up the next part of the story as we follow the trail of a local gang lord who is desperately trying to get out of prison. How his story connect to the others has as many twists and turns as an Amsterdam canal itself.

Amsterdam,a character in the book itself is a multilayered character – holy and religious sites sit beside more salubrious ones –

“The big bulk of the old church lay around the corner.  But this part of De Wallen was firmly in the grip of the red-light district”

And from the author’s website  – where he also has an interactive map – he recommends going to the Jordaan area for the De Eland inspiration for one of the key locations in the book . “You never know who might be at the bar…” he says.

Well that’s enough reason for us to take ‘the House of dolls as our guidebook!”

And if you find yourself in the Jordaan do pop into De Eland, the real-life inspiration for one of the key locations, as you’ll discover here. You never know who might be at the bar…

Trail Gallery

Booktrailer Review

Susan @thebooktrailer:

Booktrailer recommended for the story, the writing and for the excellent booktrail around the city that you can literally follow in the steps of the characters both a good and bad.

This is a snappy fas paced and enthralling read and even without the strong location as a character in the book, this is a heck of a trip – in every sense of the word. Pieter Vos is a detective with a difference nd his fall from grace as it were is an interesting backstory to how he cam about living on a boat. His relationship with Laura Bakker is a nice one which can only develop further in later books. The fact she is new and from the county adds to her naivety and so with a  long standing detective such as Vos, I liked this difference and the possibilities it brought. Much humour too.

David obviously has been to Amsterdam but not only that has lived and breathed the city. I lived there for a time myself and the type of building, the wind around the tall gothic houses, the spring sun smell on the canals – these are things that only someone who loves the city can and does notice.

Just one more chapter   – something I promised myself with this book for they were short and snappy. This first in the series will definitely see me coming back for more.

Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:

Twitter: @david_hewson

Web: davidhewson.com

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