The Maze – The Harbour Master 2

Author/Guide: Daniel Pembrey

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: Seasoned Amsterdam cop Henk Van der Pol is back on a new case which takes him out of his beloved city for a while and into the world of dirty diamonds…

ISBN: 978-1497384057
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

Maverick Amsterdam cop Henk van der Pol lives on a boat on the city’s canals and on the brink of retirement can’t help getting involved with cases he cares about. Cases sometimes he has no business getting involved with.

In book two of the Harbour Master series, Henk is once again involved with the murkier side to the city. With its labyrinthe of streets, Amsterdam and now Rotterdam prove to be a puzzle to navigate. When Henk is faced with a series of cases involving diamonds, fine art and drugs, he enters an impossible maze which he desperately tries to navigate. But there is someone else in that maze, one step ahead and trying to throw him off the scent or to ensure he never reaches his goal.

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The Maze –

“The old harbour is all that is left of old Rotterdam, a city whose marine fringes form Europe’s biggest port. The Maze as it’s called. All that cargo moving around those labyrinthe docks…”

Rotterdam, where the novel opens is a city which ‘ must have been a fine-looking place once’, that is before the Germans flattened it and time took it toll. Even one of the ship’s plaques says Nooitgedacht on it which translates as ‘Who’d’ve thought?

Henk and his wife are in Rotterdam in order to meet with their daughter. When the call comes in for him to travel across to Brussels in order to assist the attache of the Dutch energy minister with an important murder investigation.

But first a stopover in Antwerp’s famous diamond area – no harm in that is there?

I consoled myself with the thought that international regulation made it almost impossible to profit from illicit diamonds now…

But of course this is the diamond quarter after all and something is amiss. Never mind the improvements in the field, the Kimberly Process.. Daniel paints a vivid and immersive picture. Brussels and the inside corridors of the EU have some dark secrets to hide…

Back in Amsterdam, a body has been found and links to the diplomatic community seems to be following Henk around. Stolen art work, a prostitute found badly beaten and a biker gang from the Ukraine..

This is not what Henk imagined the EU should contain…