A Belgian detective stalks a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin in the award-winning first installment of the Amsterdam trilogy.
Walter Eekhaut (whose name rhymes with “stakeout”) is a rebellious veteran of the Belgian police force. He’s just been sent to Amsterdam to help the Dutch security service investigate a Russian oligarch with connections to Putin. Some of the Russian’s business is certainly legitimate, but some may well not be. Working with Chief Superintendent Alexandra Dewaal and her team, Eekhaut is about to discover the criminal underworld of a city famous for its permissiveness.
Meanwhile another case draws Eekhaut’s attention: the murder of a young leftist dissident, alleged to have stolen a list of secret donors from an ultra-right-wing political party. The hunt for the killer leads to a knot of black money interests and illegal dealings that pit the Russian mob, Dutch politicians, and shady business leaders against the police.
Winner of the Hercule Poirot Award, Absinthe is the first installment in Guido Eekhaut’s Amsterdam trilogy, a modern noir thriller of “tense, up-to-date euro-political intrigue” (Jim Houghton, author of The Hooligan’s Game).
