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Utrecht Rain

Utrecht Rain

Author(s): Jon Wilkins

Location(s): Utrecht

Genre(s): Crime

Era(s): Present Day

We are re-introduced to Hoofsinspecteur Caes Heda, widower and leader of a group of six police officers based at Kroonstraat Police Station in the fine old student town of Utrecht.
The novel opens with two of his officers being subjected to an unprovoked frenzied attack. One of them, Maaike Meijer is the girl friend of his student daughter Truus.
Maaike is badly injured and the hunt starts for the attackers, but this is interrupted by robberies at two banks and then the police are distracted yet again when a body is found in a warehouse. How all three incidents are linked is played out as the police work tirelessly to solve the crimes.
Truus Heda meanwhile is working for Private Investigator, disgraced former police man, Thijs Orman and finds herself looking into two cases, one involving Edgar de Kuiper, a wanton son of rich parents and the other a series of petty thefts from businessman Ruud Krol a well-known fence and fixer who not surprisingly doesn’t want the police involved. When the Dutch secret service, the AIVD, get involved however, Truus finds herself investigating in the same areas as her father and they start to work together. The plot deepens with two more bank robberies and the emergence of a Serbian crime gang under the leadership of mystery woman Marija Pavlovic in Zagreb. The alarm systems of the banks have been compromised by computer genius Pyotr Katalinski, but they then find that it was his body in a Utrecht warehouse.
Truus is undercover fighting the two Vos sisters who seem to have an unnatural interest in Edgar, and also in her, whilst trying to care for her love at home who has been deeply traumatised by her attack at the start of the novel. The police are unaware when Truus and Edgar are kidnapped by the Vos sisters as they prepare to rob the Centraal Museum.
The Vos sisters are focussing on robbery of a priceless Old Master from the Centraal Museum along with their Serbian associates made possible by Katalinskis software.
The attack on Maaike and subsequent murder of a police officer relate back to a squabble at a squat some years ago. The Vos sisters wanted revenge and to mess with the powers of the police force. When the Vos sisters robbery effort is thwarted and the Serbs captured, the Vos sisters escape and return to a kidnapped Truus who fights for her life before the police arrive in the nick of time.
The attack on Maaike causes her to have severe mental health problems and how she copes with them are explored throughout the novel as we see the impact her illness has on her friends and colleagues. We watch as love continues to bloom between Maaike and Truus against the background of work and the pressures it brings. We discover the old town of Utrecht as a character in its own right. We see how all the very different characters at Kroonstraat work together with Caes to get their quarry and how Thijs Orman works tirelessly to regain his reputation. With the interference of the secret service causing dangerous and fatal problems for Caes we see how he balances all these concerns, yet is still able to function as a leader of his group and father to Truus, the centre of his universe.

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