No Sale

June 25, 2012
In this engrossing mystery set in 1998 from Belgian author Conrad (Limousine), Antwerp Chief Supt. Fons Luyckx, known as the Sponge for his retention of information, looks into the murder of a woman fished out of the water at the city’s Bonaparte Dock. The authorities soon identify the battered body as that of Shelley Cox, the missing wife of film historian Victor Cox. The less than distraught widower, who regarded the alcoholic Shelley as having been figuratively dead for years, naturally becomes the prime suspect. Things only get worse for him after his wife’s murder proves to be one of a series inspired by movies such as The Big Heat and Psycho, and he’s found to have known several of the victims. The sardonic Sponge, who moves things along nicely, could easily sustain a series. This book won the Diamond Bullet Award for the best crime novel in Dutch in 2007.

July 1, 2012
Antwerp film professor Victor Cox is losing his tenuous grip on reality. His wife was murdered in circumstances that evoke the real-life death of an obscure noir actress; his new girlfriend looks like Louise Brooks with a touch of Clara Bow; a series of other murders in the city parallel still more moments in film history. Cox is the natural suspect, but he appears to have alibis. Or does he? Even the professor begins to believe he may be the killer, perhaps because it would make such a fine film-noir premise, or because it fits so perfectly with the thesis of Cox's study on repressed sexuality in Hitchcock. The plot crumbles a bit at the end, as a pair of Antwerp cops close in on the killer (the procedural element never quite melds with the more stylized noir plot). Still, film noir is famous for its creaky plots. Maybe Conrad muddled the story line consciously, as part of his homage. Either way, for noir devotees, this one is must reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)