Anja de Jager – författare

AMSTERDAM 1980A city in turmoil: rife with drug abuse, riots and terror threats in the run-up to the coronation of Queen Beatrix. As Amsterdam''s police force is overwhelmed by the civil war between law enforcement and squatters, local neighbourhood policeman Piet Huizen is seconded from his hometown Alkmaar to this cauldron. It should be daunting but he feels strangely liberated from the responsibilities of home and everyday work. Together with his three colleagues from across the country, he''s only there temporarily and can even laugh at his own provincial outlook. Until a student goes missing.AMSTERDAM NOWDetective Lotte Meerman doesn''t want to hear about her father Piet Huizen''s past because his month in Amsterdam in 1980 led directly to her parent''s divorce. The less she knows, the better it is. Then two men die. Their deaths are not treated as suspicious but Lotte realises there is something that links the deceased men: they were both children of her father''s former team-mates. And the more she investigates the circumstances of their deaths, the more Lotte comes to realise that she could be next on the list...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

The first Lotte Meerman mystery Amsterdam-based Lotte Meerman is a cold case detective recovering from the emotional devastation of her previous investigation. She is angry and mentally scarred - but being a police officer is the only thing she wants to do. A tip-off leads Lotte to an unresolved ten-year-old murder case in which her father was the lead detective. ANd when she discovers irregularities surrounding the original investigation that make him a suspect, she decides to cover for him. Now she has to find the real murderer before she''s discovered, otherwise her father will be arrested and she will lose her job, the one thing in life that is keeping her focused and sane . . .Praise for Anja de Jager''An absorbing read with the smack of reality'' Daily Mail''The book succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality''Sunday Express''Impressive . . . De Jager is as good on dodgy family relations as she is on police procedure''The Times''Detective Lotte Meerman is damaged by her past and tortured by the dreadful mistake she''s made at work . . . Amsterdam is the other star here, beautiful and deadly'' Cath Staincliffe

Having been shot in the shoulder in the line of duty, Dutch police detective Lotte Meerman returns to work after four months of painful recovery - yet not all her colleagues are happy to see her.

But department politics take a backseat when Lotte is called to investigate a worker''s fall from the roof on a building site in the centre of Amsterdam. Frank Stapel''s tragic accident becomes suspicious when Tessa, his widow, discovers human bones in her husband''s left-luggage locker at Amsterdam Central. To Lotte, this changes the course of her investigation from fatal accident to potential murder.

When forensics discover the skeleton dates back to the Second World War, the rest of the team are convinced that Lotte is wasting everybody''s time by insisting this somehow ties in with the Frank''s death, but then it is discovered that some of the bones are less than a decade old . . . and although vindicated for pursuing the cold case, Lotte finds that the investigation takes a dark and sinister turn, linking an old war crime to events in the much more recent past.

Praise for Anja de Jager''. . . a novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience''Sunday Times''The book succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality''Sunday Express

''. . . a novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience'' Sunday TimesWhere do your loyalties lie? With the truth or with your colleagues?Drinking outside a canal-side bar on a perfect summer''s evening, Lotte is witness to the fatal stabbing of Piotr Mazur, a Polish security guard working in one of the city''s department stores. As Lotte starts to investigate Mazur''s death, all the facts point to him being a small-time drug dealer, and his murder is treated as a minor complication in another team''s larger narcotics case. Yet Lotte remains unconvinced; having viewed the man''s ordered, unchaotic flat and spoken to his colleagues, she can''t help but believe he was being set up.And in the bar, moments before Piotr was killed, Lotte saw a woman pass him a photo of a child. Shebecomes convinced that his death wasn''t a revenge-killing over drugs at all, and has to now think carefully about what to do for the best, especially as key evidence in Mazur''s murder comes from someone she knows she cannot trust. Praise for Anja de Jager''An absorbing read with the smack of reality'' Daily Mail''The book succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality''Sunday Express''Impressive . . . De Jager is as good on dodgy family relations as she is on police procedure''The Times''Detective Lotte Meerman is damaged by her past and tortured by the dreadful mistake she''s made at work . . . Amsterdam is the other star here, beautiful and deadly'' Cath Staincliffe

Guilty until proven innocent . . .It''s hard for anyone to have their work scrutinised in public. For Amsterdam-based detective Lotte Meerman, listening to the Right to Justice podcast as they dissect one of her old cases is made even more harrowing as every episode makes fresh accusations of a bungled operation.As the podcast reveals hidden facts about the arrest of Ruud Klaver, the one thing Lotte is still convinced of is that it was Ruud who was guilty of the murder of a student near Rembrandt Square ten years earlier. However, when Ruud Klaver then dies in suspicious circumstances, only hours after the final podcast proving his innocence is broadcast, Lotte has to accept that maybe she was wrong.With the dead man''s family passionately against her inclusion in the investigation into his death, the only way for Lotte to discover who killed him is by finding out where she went wrong all those years ago - if indeed she did go wrong. As Lotte digs deeper and involves colleagues from her past, it starts to look like the murder in Rembrandt Square was part of an even bigger deception . . .Praise for Anja de Jager''Captures the feel of Amsterdam . . . entirely convincing'' Daily Mail''. . . a novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience''Sunday Times''The book succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality''Sunday Express''An impressive debut . . . De Jager is as good on dodgy family relations as she is on police procedure''The Times''Detective Lotte Meerman is damaged by her past and tortured by the dreadful mistake she''s made at work . . . Amsterdam in the vicious grip of a bitter winter is the other star here, beautiful and deadly'' Cath Staincliffe

''A novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience''SUNDAY TIMES''Succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality''SUNDAY EXPRESS__________When Lotte Meerman is faced with the choice of interviewing the latest victim in a string of assaults or talking to a man who claims he really isn''t dead, she picks the interview. After all, the man cannot possibly be who he claims he is: Andre Nieuwkamp was murdered as a teenager over thirty years ago, and it had been a police success story nationwide when the skeletal remains found in the dunes outside Amsterdam had been identified, and the murderer subsequently arrested.Yet concerned about this encounter, Lotte goes to the Hotel Mondrian the next day to talk to the man, but what she finds is his corpse. And his passport shows that he wasn''t Andre Nieuwkamp as he said, but Theo Brand, a British citizen. Subsequent DNA tests reveal that the man was Andre Nieuwkamp so now Lotte has a double mystery on her hands and needs to figure out not only why Andre waited so long to tell anyone he was still alive, but also who was the teenager murdered in the dunes all those decades ago.___________Praise for Anja de Jager''An impressive debut . . . De Jager is as good on dodgy family relations as she is on police procedure''The Times''Detective Lotte Meerman is damaged by her past and tortured by the dreadful mistake she''s made at work . . . Amsterdam in the vicious grip of a bitter winter is the other star here, beautiful and deadly'' Cath Staincliffe''A tightly written, cleverly plotted whodunit that keeps the reader guessing almost to the last page'' Irish Examiner''''de Jager manages to circumvent the overfamiliar. The evocation of a bitterly cold Amsterdam is worthy of Nicholas Freeling''s Van der Valk books'' The Independent