It is a story about Russian oligarchs, cold-blooded murderers, right-wing politicians and corrupt policemen, typical ingredients of a Saturday evening whodunit on television and I don't see why this story could not become the script for a television thriller. The plot is certainly solid enough to start with.
The main character Walter Eekhaut is the archetype of the stubborn policeman with unconventional methods (somewhat like Inspector Morse). The author sketches several parallel story lines in short chapters, picturing several individual colourful characters. He then brings these lines together in unexpected events that somehow ignite the story, so that you will not easily stop reading. It was a good idea of the writer to serve this story with a glass of Absinthe as this brings in real warmth and taste into the story.
To enjoy all finesses of the unexpected, the reader needs a certain understanding and feeling for rules and procedures that might be applicable in an international police context. Although the author educates his reader in this sense, the lay reader may miss the unexpected in the denouement and at this point the author might have been too demanding of his readership.
The hardcover edition I bought looks and feels very nice and I could not spot a single error in the text.
Slender Man is a book by the same author. You will find an equally good plot and a similar background view on society, but the narrating technique used in Slender Man is quite different.
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