The Magpie

This is a good detective novel with suspense woven in. You find out pretty quickly who the murderer(s) are but the detectives don't which leads to the suspense. Arnaud is the leader of a team of detectives in Amerstdam. Someone is killing a male every month and leaving their bodies naked outdoors. Is it a women killer? Does she have accomplices? Noor is a waitress/bartender who is secretly in love with Arnaud and writes an anonymous blog commending him and attempting to solve the murder for him. I would have liked a little different ending however that was more satisfactory-perhaps there will be a sequel?

I would like to thank Netgalley and Fireflies Publishing for a review copy of The Magpie, a standalone police procedural set in Amsterdam.

There is a serial killer on the loose in Amsterdam who is killing one man a month by breaking his neck. The killer is nicknamed The Magpie because he takes his victims' clothes and jewellery. Detective Arnaud van Loo leads a small team dedicated to finding and stopping The Magpie but with such a forensically aware killer there is precious little to go on.

The Magpie is a bit of a mixed bag and didn't really hold my attention. Much of this is due to the fact that the novel could do with a good edit. It has a good, interesting plot which is quite compulsive but the novel is overlong and gets bogged down in superfluities. The novel has multiple points of view and several of them have little bearing on the murder enquiry and could be eliminated completely. As it stands they are a distraction from the plot and divert the reader's focus. The novel also spends too much time on domestic detail - who cares if Arnaud has showered before leaving for a scene?

On the other hand I enjoyed the plodding nature of the enquiry, the team's elation at minor breakthroughs and despair when they lead nowhere as it seems fairly realistic. The forensics don't bear close scrutiny as they aren't realistic and the author obviously hasn't done much research in this area - my viewing of true crime documentaries makes me sure on this point. I also like the closeness of the team and Arnaud's character. He is a functioning alcoholic but he is also smart, caring and dedicated and a very credible character.

The Magpie is a solid read.

This is a very interesting book- set in Holland, it is more than the usual murder-detective story. The characters smoke alot, don't exercise or do any of the things than more local police do.
The victims don't present in a typical way and the clues, as they are provided, are misleading.
The different people are talking in separate chapters so we can follow their individual paths. As the layers of the story are peeled back, things start to fall into place, as much as any psychopath can fall into place.

The ending is ok, not quite as shocking as I had anticipated it might be.
The best parts of the book are the different aspects of life for a detective in Amsterdam than any old US city.