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Amsterdam La Rete Uccide (2005)

by Charles den Tex(Favorite Author)

3.91 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8876419063 (ISBN13: 9788876419065)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Edizioni e/o

series

Bellicher

review 1: Cool first story of a trilogy omtrent Michael Bellicher, communicatie adviseur. Mooie beschrijvingen, leuke uitvinding om verhaal af te wisselen met Bellichers blog: BelliLog. Bellicher zijn observaties zijn soms individueel, soms groots, soms simpel, soms intellectueel. Mooi karakter, en gave twists in een thriller omtrent een obscure website (the house of mr miller) die alle maatschappelijke, politieke en business gedragingen op de wereld volgt.
review 2: It's an unusual opening for any novel, especially one chosen as the Netherland's best crime novel of 2006, winner of De Gouden Strop (Dutch version of USA's Edgar award). Bellicher, a very successful Amsterdam political and business consultant for an international firm, is standing with his parents in the w... moreaiting hall at Schipol, and at the first sight of his brother, whom he loves and misses, a brother who has been away 5 years in America - he faints. His parents and his brother leave him there at Schipol at the first aid station. Bellicher then goes back to his apartment, and goes on a drinking binge, a complete breakdown in his formerly well-organized life. It lasts days. When he does finally show up at work his bosses make it clear he will lose his job, having stood up important clients at critical times. Realizing he won't be allowed to come into the building anymore, now desperate to get his life back on track, Bellicher slips into the kitchen canteen down the hall from his office, determined to keep his job, and stays there all night. At one point, he slips out to go to the bathroom and he comes across the dead body of a woman.So why does he faint? And why is there a dead woman? And who is the mysterious Meneer Miller?I enjoyed most of the 380 pages of De Macht van Meneer Miller. I liked the twists and turns, the Hitchcockian type premise - yes, Bellicher is the innocent caught up in the web of intrigue, but on the other hand he is in the employ of said web of intrigue - and his growing awareness becomes a serious problem for somebody very dangerous. In ignorance there is bliss, Charles Den Tex seems to say. Reality is what we believe it to be, whether it's about your brother, or your politics, or your job. Reality unravels for Bellicher. This makes him an interesting character to be with, with interesting observations, and Den Tex must feel comfortable with him as Bellicher is slated for a trilogy of novels.Nasty auto versus good guy on rented motor bike, chase through the streets of Amsterdam. Fun. Interesting plot with a few holes in it (kept wondering why the Anonymous-type computer group Bellicher hooks up with doesn't just make a quick You Tube video of what they know about the hardware). The big showdown was a bit too familiar for me. The pace, the staging; it I've seen this kind of wrap-up so many times on TV or somewhere. Still, the canvas author Den Tex paints upon with such rapid angular observations is unique, philosophic, and is a troubling picture of our brave new world. He's the most modern of thriller writers, in his use of the trappings of the digital age: the web, the I-phones, the hacking, the omnipresent lurking corporations. DMVMM was made into a 4-part series for Dutch TV, not a movie. Better a multi-parter on TV than a movie, I'm sure, with the complexity of the plot and so much happening in e-mails, on-line, on computer screens. Still couldn't have been easy to translate it to television. (After one run-in with the bad guys, Bellicher was so disabled for about 2 chapters, it went beyond making him sympathetic... I started to wonder if he was going to finally get up or just become a sack of potatoes).He gets up and our sympathies remain strongly with Bellicher. He is imperfect, like us. And really his is a narrow, strange world. Bellicher's blind spots are the author's blind spots, I presume. Take for example: Though the chase, the action, the suspense, keep us from dwelling on what's missing, Den Tex is dealing with less than full deck. It's a deft sleight of hand. He keeps us reading and there is not be a fully developed woman character in the story. Oh, there's a token girlfriend, but she's in another country, just a few e-mails, and when she does get back, well, I'll let you read what happens. And Bellicher's mother! A pencil sketch and totally unsympathetic (believing what the TV tells her, she phones the police when her son shows up at her door.) Are we seeing a pattern here? Here is a preoccupation with powers commonly associated with men: Technology, career; control; big dog/little dog; hunter/hunted. No Botticelli babes decorating the scenery here. With Den Tex, the power of womanhood, the mystic allure of femininity can be synthesized by science and injected into a man. Who needs women?Don't misunderstand me. This is an entertainment, fascinating and as full of contradictions as the Dutch culture. I would read another Bellicher novel. I'll read Wachtwoord if I can get it. Maybe Bellicher will discover himself even more. Maybe his macho self will get turned inside out. less

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