The Public Prosecutor

July 20, 2009
Set in Belgium in 1999, Geeraerts's first novel to be made available in English will disappoint those expecting any distinctively Belgian content. Harvard-educated Albert Savelkoul, who's fascinated by J. Edgar Hoover's private life, has risen to the prestigious position of public prosecutor for Antwerp's Court of Appeal, despite having been caught patronizing a prostitute by a police vice squad. He has also engaged in covert acts of corruption, such as assisting Albanian drug dealers escape conviction in exchange for a substantial payoff. When the Belgian representative of Opus Dei, the sinister organization of choice for modern thriller writers, targets Savelkoul for blackmail, the police, after learning of the plot, have their own reasons not to help the prosecutor. While Geeraerts is his country's best-known writer after Georges Simenon, the book suffers from languid pacing and unsympathetic characters.