Janwillem van de Wetering's Outsider in Amsterdam (#mystery)

"Killers are very scarce in Amsterdam so why should we suddenly run into a whole bunch of them?"

Piet Verbloom is found hanged in the Hindist Society building. Suicide? Could be, but then why was he banged on the head before he died?

This is the first Grijpstra and de Gier case; they're detectives on the Amsterdam force; the fat Henk Grijpstra is married with kids, and is the senior of the pair; Rinus de Gier is a sergeant, single and living with his cat Oliver. They're called in. They argue back and forth: is it suicide? But they both know that bump on the head means they will have to investigate. 

The Hindist Society is interested in a mishmash of Eastern religions--the book comes out in 1975--and their building houses a bar, a meditation center, a shop, and a commune. Verbloom sees himself as the chief priest. He's married, but should any other females appear on the premises, he feels authorized to pester them.

An early seventies society interested in Eastern religions? There's drugs, of course, hash at the very least. Are there more serious drugs? Maybe.

If it is a murder, the suspects are Piet's estranged wife, his pregnant lover, his accountant, a couple of drug dealers who frequented the bar, and the various people living in the commune, the bartender, a Papuan immigrant looking for cheap rooms. 

I've read one van de Wetering before, The Mind-Murders of 1981, the eighth in the series. I think I preferred this one. I started the series because I read somewhere it compared well with Edmund Crispin, one of my favorite mystery writers, and I continue to fail to see the comparison. It is a bit funny, but it has none of Crispin's inspired zaniness. I felt this one started well, and ended well, but I was less certain about the middle. It can't quite make up its mind whether it's a police procedural--other cases our detectives are involved with intrude--or a fair-play-cluing mystery. But if it was meant to be the latter, the red herrings weren't very red and I knew who the murderer was almost from the beginning, though the motive remained a bit mysterious until the end.

Read for the Vintage Mystery Challenge:

Vintage Mystery, Silver, Noose. That's our opening scene portrayed on the cover. With a very 70s shirt.

And for the European Reading Challenge:

It is pretty fascinating as a Netherlands book. Amsterdam was famous for its drug culture not so long afterwards. But as of 1975 (or presumably the novel represents the events of a little earlier) the city wasn't quite so ready for all that implied.

Van de Wetering was Dutch, though he lived in the U.S. later on for quite a while. It seems he wrote his novels first in Dutch, but then did his own translating.