Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel (UK 2013)

From the Publisher:
Two women had committed suicide, and a third had had to be led gently away by men in white coats. There had been an outbreak of anonymous letters... That was not so very much. But there was something more, intangible but perceptible.'

And Inspector Van der Valk changes his mind about the routine nature of his mission to Drente. What lies behind the small-town immoralities, eaves-dropping, hysteria? Could he by chance have stumbled upon one of the century's most wanted criminals?

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel. A Van der Valk Thriller. Bloomsbury Reader, ISBN: 9781448207015 (August, 2013), 247 p., £7.99 (?).

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel (USA 2001)

From the Publisher:
A flurry of anonymous letters and two suicides leads Inspector van der Valk to a mission in Drente where small-town hysteria may just lead to one of the century's most wanted criminals.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel. A Van der Valk Thriller. House of Stratus, ISBN: 1842328417 (June, 2001), 228 p., $11.50.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel (USA 1981)

From the Publisher:
DOUBLE BARREL
Inspector Van der Valk is sent to the town of Drente in the northeast corner of Holland, under the assumed identity of a tax inspector. Only Drente's burgomaster knows that he is really investigating an alarming spate of anonymous letters revealing old crimes -- letters that have already caused several recipients to kill themselves, or go mad...

"It is hard to believe that the obscene happenings in Double Barrel did not really take place. By combining plausibility with unfailing suspense, Nicolas Freeling has produced a gem of a book." -- Stanley Ellin

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel. An Inspector Van der Valk Mystery. Vintage Books, ISBN: 0394746937 (January, 1981), 247 p., $2.50.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel (UK 1975)

From the Publisher:
They told Inspector Van der Valk to pose as a bureaucrat, go to the dreariest town in Northern Holland and forget he was a policeman. They wanted him and his wife to become small-town eavesdroppers like everybody else. Just to find out who was writing letters so poisonous that two women committed suicide and everyone was scared of everyone else.

It could have been Van der Valk's most routine job... except that he found out a lot about himself, his French wife and small towns; and just by chance uncovered one of this century's most wanted criminals.

Cover design by Robert Hollingsworth, photograph by Peter Barbieri.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel. A Van der Valk Thriller. Penguin, ISBN: 0140025855 (Mai, 1975), 207 p., 60p.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel (UK 1967)

From the Publisher:
They told Inspector Van der Valk to pose as a bureaucrat, go to the dreariest town in Northern Holland and forget he was a policeman. They wanted him and his wife to become small-town eavesdroppers and 'peeping Toms' like everybody else. Just to find out who was writing letters so poisonous that two people committed suicide and everyone was scared of everyone else.

It could have been Van der Valk's dreariest job... except that he found out a lot about himself, and his wife, small towns, and just by chance uncovered the worst unpunished war criminal since Eichmann.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel. A policman is a bureaucrat. So is a Nazi death-camp commandant. Is that why they got on so well together? Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967, 190 p., 3'6.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel (USA 1966)

From the Publisher:
ANTHONY BOUCHER SAYS:
"The outstanding police detective in European fiction since Maigret is probably Inspector Van der Valk of Amsterdam's Central Recherche. What Van der Valk is working on here is a deadly campaign of poison-pen letters; and he finds himself inadvertently solving an even more serious case as well. As usual with Freeling, the absorbing detective story is also a substantial novel..."

STANLEY ELLIN SAYS:
"It is hard to believe that Inspector Van der Valk of the Amsterdam police does not exist. It is hard to believe that the obscene happenings in Double Barrel did not really take place. By combining plausibility with unfailing suspense, Nicolas Freeling has produced a gem of a book."

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel. Ballantine Mystery #U2133 (December, 1966), 190 p., 50¢.

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel (USA 1965)

From the Publisher:
Berton Roueché says, "Inspector van der Valk of the Amsterdam police is a detective comparable only to Jules Maigret in intelligence, credibility, and charm, and he is perhaps more certainly attuned to the uneasy affluence of the post-war world. In Double Barrel this admirable man is confronted with a problem that is well worth his attention, and ours."

Robert M. Coates says, "I think the Nicolas Freeling book, Double Barrel, is swell... the ending, with its real 'double-barreled' denouement, is at once unexpected, precise and satisfying."

And Stanley Ellin says, "It is hard to believe that Inspector van der Valk of the Amsterdam police does not exist. It is hard to believe that the obscene happenings in Double Barrel did not really take place. By combining this plausibility with unfailing suspense, Nicolas Freeling has produced a gem of a book."

The Procureur-Général summoned Inspector van der Valk of the Amsterdam police and told him he was to go to the town of Drente in the northeast corner of Holland. No one there was to know Van der Valk's identity -- he was to pretend to be a tax inspector. Only the town's burgomaster, to whom Van der Valk was to report, would know the Inspector's purpose in the town and who he really was.

Arlette, Van der Valk's wife, was to make the trip with him. The burgomaster would find a house for them to live in, would arrange everything for them.

A week later the Van der Valks were in Drente -- and the burgomaster was explaining why Van der Valk had been sent there. Someone in town was writing anonymous letters revealing precise knowledge of long-hidden secrets, letters that had caused several recipients to kill themselves, to go mad. No one could be sure who was getting the letters. How many of them had been burnt as soon as they were received? How many people were choosing to suffer in absolute silence? The anonymous writer didn't seem to be crazy, but whatever it was was dangerous and must be stopped.

Van der Valk went to work. The job was formidable. The people of the town were a suspicious lot -- and the letter writer was very well hidden. However, Van der Valk is not a man who will let a difficult problem stop him -- he will keep on trying to solve it, as he does in this most excellent novel by an author whose reputation is enhanced by each book.

Jacket design by P. Norado

Nicolas Freeling: Double-barrel. A Harper Novel of Suspense. New York: Harper & Row, 1965, 217 p., $3.95.