Death at the Orange Locks
As Covid-19 continues to narrow our horizons and we can only dream of foreign travel, why not pick up Anja’s latest Lotte Meerman thriller and transport yourself to wonderfully vibrant and cosmopolitan Amsterdam, which is the regular setting for Lotte’s police cases. This latest one brings Lotte into uncomfortably close contact with Arjen, her ex-husband and Nadia, his new wife, who come and visit her at central Amsterdam’s police station to report Nadia’s father missing.
Fans and critics alike have always raved how the books are as much about Amsterdam as Lotte, and Anja clearly loves her former home as she writes about it so brilliantly, evoking a real sense of place. And in case you are wondering . . . the Orange Locks are the barriers around Amsterdam which keep the sea at bay and stop the city from being flooded. So now you know!
Krystyna Green
'A novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience' Sunday Times
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Keeping it in the family...
After her painful divorce four years ago, Lotte Meerman has kept well away from Arjen, her ex-husband, and his new wife Nadia. So when they both visit her at central Amsterdam's police station to report Nadia's father missing, Lotte is shocked - but hides it well.
Then two days later a dog walker reports the discovery of a body near the Orange Locks, built to keep the sea out of Amsterdam, and the missing man is identified as Nadia's father. Lotte wants to stay away from the investigation but his widow, Margreet, keeps searching her out as she has no idea it was her daughter who was pivotal in the marriage break-up. She wrongly identifies Lotte as a friend and tells her that Patrick had been a great husband and father, and a successful businessman. But when Lotte digs into Patrick's past, she discovers instead a failing company and a man with a history of making unwanted sexual advances to his female employees.
Margreet is unaware of any of this. And the more Lotte investigates the dead man's past, the more she finds to suggest that her ex-husband is somehow involved in his death...
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Praise for Anja de Jager:
'Succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality'
Sunday Express
'Impressive' The Times
