Book Review – A Cold Death In Amsterdam by Anja de Jager

Hardback by Constable, £19.99 (ebook £9.99)

Lotte Meerman is a cold-case detective with the Amsterdam police. Following a tip-off, she is re-examining a 10-year-old unsolved murder. It seems straightforward enough – a cuckold husband shoots his rival – until she discovers some discrepancies in the original investigation, which was led by her father, also a detective, now retired.

Against her better judgement, Lotte decides to cover for him and doesn’t tell her colleagues or boss that she’s related to the key suspect. The pressure is on to find the real killer before her secret is discovered, or her father will go to jail and she will lose her job.

Anja de Jager’s debut novel is a tightly written, cleverly plotted whodunit that keeps you guessing almost to the last page. Lotte Meerman is a flawed (aren’t they always?) but believable character and it’s refreshing to read a murder mystery that’s not gratuitously violent or wantonly bloody and gory.