A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central

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Description

'. . . a novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience' Sunday Times

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

'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

Reviews

A harrowing but absorbing read * Daily Mail *
[Meerman's] painstaking police work is undermined by emotional turmoil in a novel brilliantly evoking the isolation of a woman with an unbearable weight on her conscience * The Sunday Times on A Cold Death in Amsterdam *
The book succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality * Sunday Express on A Cold Death in Amsterdam *
Anja de Jager's debut novel is a tightly written, cleverly plotted whodunit that keeps the reader guessing almost to the last page * Irish Examiner on A Cold Death in Amsterdam *
An impressive debut . . . De Jager is as good on dodgy family relations as she is on police procedure * The Times on A Cold Death in Amsterdam *
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 on A Cold Death in Amsterdam *
Complete with a strong and respectable female protagonist, Anja de Jager presents a thrilling whodunit that is bound to ensure the admiration of any reader. Welcome to Amsterdam. * W24 *

Author Bio

Anja de Jager is a London-based native Dutch speaker who writes in English. She draws inspiration from cases that her father, a retired police detective, worked on in the Netherlands. Anja worked in the City for twenty years but is now a full-time writer. She is currently working on the next Lotte Meerman novel.