Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side / The Lovely Ladies

w Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side / The Lovely Ladies

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side (UK 2001)

From the Publisher:
Nicolas Freeling introduces a subtle and highly complex character in the shape of police detective Piet Van der Valk in this thriller, triggered by a street stabbing with a difference. Freeling gives an astute, imaginative breakdown of the world of violence and corruption.

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side. A Van der Valk Thriller. House of Stratus, ISBN: 1842328484 (June, 2001), 224 p., £6.99.

Nicolas Freeling: The Lovely Ladies (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
The trail of an old man's killer takes Van der Valk to Ireland.
When F.-X. Martinez, an impoverished but distinguished old man, is stabbed in a busy Amsterdam market, Inspector Van der Valk is put on the case. The clues are few and none too strong, but they all point to Dublin, where the victim's daughters live. And so Van der Valk crosses paths with the three lovely ladies...

"The depth and versatility of Van der Valk's mind were never more enthrallingly displayed. If there is a more literate writer of detective puzzlers than Freeling, he doesn't seem to appear in print much lately."-- Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Cover design by Irving Freeman

Nicolas Freeling: The Lovely Ladies. A Van der Valk Mystery. Penguin, ISBN: 0140113675 (January, 1989), 288 p., $3.95.

Nicolas Freeling: The Lovely Ladies (USA 1981)

From the Publisher:
The elderly man dropped dead in the marketplace in Amsterdam. It was assumed that he'd been run over, but Inspector Van der Valk, who happened to be passing by, found the handle of an antique dagger protruding from the man's vest. When the victim was identified, van der Valk came to realize that the key to the murder was with his three daughters who lived in Dublin. And so he went to Ireland...

Nicolas Freeling: The Lovely Ladies. An Inspector Van der Valk Mystery. Vintage Books, ISBN: 0394746945 (March, 1981), 280 p., $2.50.

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side (UK 1975)

From the Publisher:
'Van der Valk remains the most subtle, complex and interesting of fictional police detectives; the plot, triggered off by a street stabbing, is smoothly handled and constantly absorbing and we are given an unusually shrewd and imaginative analysis of the springs of violence, particularly as they affect the young' -- Edmund Crispin in the Sunday Times

'The best yet of Freeling, and that is praise indeed' -- Andrew Hope in the Evening Standard

Cover design by Robert Hollingsworth,
photograph by Peter Barbieri

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side. A Van der Valk Thriller. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1975, ISBN: 0140035990, 218 p., 60p.

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side (UK 1973)

'The best yet of Freeling, and that is praise indeed' -- Andrew Hope in the Evening Standard

Cover design by Shoot Photographics

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side. A Van der Valk Thriller. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1973, ISBN: 0140035990, 218 p., 35p.

Nicolas Freeling: The Lovely Ladies (USA 1971)

From the Publisher:
The elderly man was killed in the market place in Amsterdam, just as Inspector Van der Valk was going past. It was assumed, at first, that he'd been run over, but Van der Valk found the handle of an antique dagger emerging from the man's old-fashioned waistcoat and said to the crowd, "This is a death by violence; you may have witnessed an assassination. Directly you have given your names to the officers, you may go home. Please be at home tonight: an officer will call to interview you."

The dead man was identified as F.-X. Martinez. Van der Valk went to see Mrs. Martinez. She was younger than her husband, much younger. She called her husband Vader -- father.

But it was Martinez's real daughters -- the girls -- that Van der Valk had to see. Lotte he didn't see, she lived in Venezuela, but the others -- Agnes, Agatha, Anastasia, the ladies of Belgrave Square, Dublin -- they were the ones he saw.

Because, in part, of Senator Terence Lynch -- Irish and a most prominent figure -- Van der Valk was told to proceed to Dublin.
"You speak English, I suppose?" he was asked.
"I can just barely make myself understood," he said.
"That's all that's needed," he was told.
And it was all, or almost all that was needed.
This is a fascinating story by Nicolas Freeling, who knows Dublin well and whose knowledge of it and the Irish adds a whole magic flavor to this novel.

Jacket design by Marjory Dressler

Nicolas Freeling: The Lovely Ladies. A Harper Novel of Suspense. New York: Harper & Row, 1971, ISBN: 0060113499, 250 p., $?.??.

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side (UK 1971)

From the Publisher:
An elderly man is stabbed to death in the street in Amsterdam and Commissaire Van der Valk finds himself spending a sinularly (steht da wirklich so, Anm. des Setzers) hectic time in -- of all places -- Dublin, disentangling the complex chain of events which led to the killing.

Among the individuals and happenings involved are three Dutch sisters living in Dublin; Van der Valk began by thinking them characters straight out of Chekhov but soon had cause to modify this opinion. Others are an influential Irish Senator; the thirsty and resourceful Detective-Inspector Flynn, with his office in Dublin Castle; and whoever it was that, in an apparently peaceful Irish avenue, coshed the Commissaire, breaking his collar-bone and causing him temporary misgivings about Irish hospitality.

Before the end of the story, with its dramatic yachting interlude and highly entertaining Dutchman's eye-view of Irish life at several social levels, Van der Valk becomes unexpectedly involved in what seems like a romantic episode. When on his return home he is ill-advised enough to admit it, his adorable wife Arlette gives him a verbal going-over every bit as punishing as being slugged in Dublin.

This is, we believe, the best Van der Valk ever.

Jacket design by KEN REILLY

Nicolas Freeling: Over the High Side. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971, ISBN: 0241019958, 238 p., £1.50.