Winner of the Hercule Poirot Award. A fast-paced international crime thriller about Russian infiltration in the financial world. Walter Eekhaut, a veteran of the Belgian police force who has a problem with authority, is dispatched to Amsterdam to aid the Dutch security service in investigating the activities of a well-connected Russian oligarch, with ties to Putin. Some of the Russian's business is legitimate, but some may well not be. In Amsterdam, Eekhaut is seconded to Chief Superintendent Alexandra Dewaal and her team, and begins to learn about the city's shady underside. He is at once pulled into another case, the murder of a young leftist dissident, alleged to have stolen a sensitive list from the Amsterdam offices of an ultra-right-wing political party—a list with the names of secret donors. The hunt for the killer leads to a knot of black money interests and illegal dealings that pit the Russian mob and Dutch politicians and business leaders against the police and anyone else who tries to get in their way. Absinthe is the gripping first installment in the bestselling Amsterdam trilogy featuring Eekhaut and Dewaal and, for North American readers, a new voice in European noir.

The second novel in the acclaimed, best-selling Euro-crime series that began with the Hercule Poirot Award winner, Absinthe. If the world will end in flames, who is stoking the fire? Walter Eekhaut (rhymes with “stakeout”), the veteran chief inspector from the Brussels police force who has a problem with authority, remains in Amsterdam, where he was dispatched to assist the Dutch security service. When his boss, Chief Superintendent Alexandra Dewaal, receives a tip from one of her informants, the two find themselves across the border tramping in the Belgian Ardennes on a frigid January day. What they discover is macabre and seven charred human bodies, attached to tall stakes with chains, in an almost perfect circle. From the look of it, these people were burned alive in some sort of ritual. On the wall of a cabin, Eekhaut and Dewaal make out an enigmatic message written in "This World seems to last Forever. But it is merely the Dream of a Sleeper." Similar events occur elsewhere in Europe as well as Africa, where Eekhaut's new girlfriend has gone on assignment for an international aid agency operating in Somalia. There have long been stories of an apocalyptic religious cult, The Church of Supreme Purification, along with a more shadowy militant offshoot. Are they connected to these events? Is this some conspiracy to cleanse human society by fire, or is there an even more sinister explanation?

Wanneer illegaal in Afrika gedumpt radioactief afval kinderen doodt en een Nederlandse bedrijfs leider, Jaap Roseboom, betrokken blijkt, trekt journalist Pim Raspe ten strijde tegen dit onrecht. Hij wil deze zaak, die hem zelfs tot in het financiële hart van Londen voert, tot op het bot uitzoeken. Roseboom wordt echter vermoord en een gevaarlijke huurmoordenaar maakt al snel andere slachtoffers. Het team van de Nederlandse AIVD, met hoofdcommissaris Dewaal aan het roer, stelt officieel een onder zoek in. Ze wordt daarbij geholpen - en soms gehinderd - door haar adjunct, hoofdinspecteur Walter Eekhaut. Deze heeft echter nog andere dingen aan zijn hoofd. Een moord op een jonge Marokkaanse man voert hem terug naar Leuven en naar de dood van zijn eigen vrouw, tien jaren eerder. Een uit de hand gelopen zaak van mensensmokkel krijgt nu, na een decennium, een dramatisch vervolg. Van GUIDO EEKHAUT verschenen de thrillers Absint (Hercule Poirotprijs 2009, waarover Vrij Nederland 'Een verrassend debuut', terwijl De Standaard 'Origineel en stilistisch vaardig geschreven'), Loutering, Vulkaan en de drie Wolven-boeken.