Nicolas Freeling: Flanders Sky (USA 2023)

From the Publisher:
The Edgar award-winning British crime writer's latest Inspector Castang mystery "takes the international policier to high ground... and does the genre proud" (The New York Times).

For Detective Castang, being asked to serve as an aid to a British jurist feels more like being fired than promoted, but relocating to Brussels with his wife is a nice perk. When his employer is charged with murder, Castang's investigative skills are brought to the forefront once again. But the more he digs into the darkness, the more unsettled he becomes by the nature of evil, which appears to have no borders-and for which there is no true escape.

"An insightful look at the human condition. Freeling is a treasure." -- Publishers Weekly
"One of the better Castang tales, journeying into the maze of European politics, national characteristics, and combustible emotion. Thought-provoking and well told." -- Kirkus Reviews

Nicolas Freeling: Flanders Sky. A Henri Castang Mystery. Early Bird Books / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504090230 (December, 2023), eBook, 6480 KB (ca. 281 p.), $14.99.

Nicolas Freeling: The Pretty How Town (2001)

From the Publisher:
Nicolas Freeling weaves a tale of an extraordinary world within the European Union's headquarters, home to Henri Castang. His promotion to advisor leaves a lot to be desired however as Castang is forced to infiltrate a nest of crypto Marxists. To make matters worse, Castang's boss finds himself teetering on the brink of a grave criminal charge and his Belgian mistress is drawn into this intriguing drama

Nicolas Freeling: The Pretty How Town. A Henri Castang Mystery. House of Stratus; ISBN: 1842328662 (June, 2001), 206 p., £13.99.

Nicolas Freeling: Flanders Sky (USA 1993)

From the Publisher:
Seldom is a slim novel so dense with feelings, insights and characters seen in depth... Freeling is one of the most literate and idiosyncratic of crime writers." -- Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times

FLANDERS SKY
The Berlin Wall is falling. Eastern Europe is in turmoil. Amid the tumult, Inspector Henri Castang has been exiled to a bureaucratic post in Bruxelles, a city in the eye of the storm. But the forces of violence are at work even here. When a colleague's wife is suddenly murdered, Castang sets out to prove his proper English friend's innocence, and scrutinizes the lives being lived around him. In so doing he uncovers a shocking tangle of intrigue and guilt in a world where Castang is not the only exile -- and the killer is not the only guilty party...

"If you've never heard of Nicolas Freeling... you're in for a treat... Read one and you'll want to get all the Freelings in print." -- Cosmopolitan
"Sophisticated and introspective... Freeling is a treasure." -- Publishers Weekly

NICOLAS FREELING, a former professional cook who became an award-winning mystery writer, concocted his first novel while serving a sentence of three weeks in jail for stealing food. He is the author of over thirty novels, all featuring ruminative, unorthodox detectives, sophisticated settings and plots, and an introspective and always provocative view of human nature.

Nicolas Freeling: Flanders Sky. A Henri Castang Mystery. Mysterious Press / Warner Books, ISBN: 0446403520 (September, 1993), 207 p., $5.50.

Nicolas Freeling: The Pretty How Town (UK 1992)

From the Publisher:
For Henri Castang, banishment to the EC world in Brussels, in what sounds an empty advisory post, is both a promotion and the end of his police career. Yet he is still supposed to keep his ears and eyes open, to 'permeate that nest of cryptomarxists'- a situation he at first thought ludicrous. He soon finds it less funny. His wife Vera's trip home to Czechoslovakia sets his teeth on edge; so do the mysterious notes that arrive, randomly, to haunt him. And then Harold, an English jurist and Castang's boss, finds himself in danger of a grave criminal charge. His wife, his Belgian mistress and his friends are all drawn into the drama...

Life in the cosmopolitan setting of EC headquarters proves more than Henri Castang or Vera bargained for. This extraordinary world in which human pain disregards all the rules of bureaucracy merits - and gets - an extraordinary novel. Timely, elegant, brilliantly idiosyncratic; only Nicolas Freeling could have written it.

Born and educated in England, Nicolas Freeling now regards himself, with accuracy, as a European. For fifteen years he worked as a hotel and restaurant cook throughout Europe, he speaks fluent French, Dutch and German, and he now lives in the Vosges with his Dutch wife while his sons have married German, French and Italian women.

His first novel (which featured the Dutch detective Van der Valk) was published in 1962. Henri Castang first made an appearance in 1974; THE PRETTY HOW TOWN is the tenth in the Castang series. With Van der Valk and Henri Castang, Freeling has built up an international reputation and he is the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in New York, the Grand Prix Roman Policier in Paris and the Gold Dagger in London.

Illustration: John Howard

Nicolas Freeling: The Pretty How Town. Little, Brown, and Company, ISBN: 0356205568 (May, 1992), 207 p., £13.99.