Book description
This was the end of the story that had started 'Once upon a time, in a
rainy country, there was a king...' The end had not happened in a rainy
country, but on a bone-dry Spanish hillside, three hundred metres from
where Van der Valk had left a lot of blood, some splintered bone, a few
fragments of gut, and a ten-seventy-five Mauser rifle bullet.
No one had broken any laws. But a handsome, middle-aged millionaire had
disappeared with a naked girl. And Van der Valk was given the job of
finding out why. Nicolas Freeling, born Nicolas Davidson (March 3,
1927 - July 20, 2003), was a British crime novelist, best known as the
author of the Van der Valk series of detective novels. A television
series based on the character was produced for the British ITV network
by Thames Television during the 1970s, and revived in the 1990s.
Freeling's The King of the Rainy Country
received a 1967 Edgar Award, from the Mystery Writers of America, for
Best Novel. He also won the Gold Dagger of the Crime Writers'
Association, and France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.
In 1968 his novel Love in Amsterdam
was adapted as the film Amsterdam Affair
directed by Gerry O'Hara and starring Wolfgang Kieling as Van Der Valk.
