The Devil's Playground

ISBN: 0141014067
Author: Stav Sherez
Description:
In a forgotten corner of a rainlashed park in Amsterdam, the body of a tramp is found. The police can find no name nor any obvious cause of death. Only the scarring on his body suggests he is the latest victim of a serial killer terrorizing the city. Detective Ronald van Hijn has just one lead: the phone number of a young Englishman. Jon Reed is summoned from London to identify the body and tell van Hijn what he can about the man he knew as Jake Colby. But Jon is determined to do much more for his mysterious friend. Soon he's uncovering a horrific history of terror and mass murder rooted in Europe's murky past. And the killer is still on the loose. From the Author I wanted to write about Amsterdam. It seemed a confluence of what I was looking for. The past is always present there. You really get a sense of it in the architecture and look of the city and I wanted to show how crime always has a past, how every event can be spooled back to old resentments and enmities and how the past can suddenly blow up into the present. Then there was the legalized nature of the sex and drugs industry. I wondered what lay underneath that. I saw the body of a prostitute stretchered out under neon and police lights. The dramatic possibilities ensnared me. The canals and small streets. It's very atmospheric, very creepy - exactly the kind of setting one needs for a crime novel!I wanted to show how crimes don't have an end. How murder and betrayal stretch down the centuries infecting all those that came after - both the victims and the perpetrators and how time doesn't heal all wounds. For me the Holocaust and the atom bomb are the real start of the twentieth century. I wanted to look at how the past still informs us, both politically and personally, and how we try to deal with that. I also wanted to make the link between modern serial killer crimes and historical crimes, how the same psychopathology motivated both, beyond history and beyond politics. I think some of the best crime books put history into their crosshairs - I think it can add texture and mystery.

Pages: 464
Format: Paperback
Genre: General
Rating: Not yet rated

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