The Tulip Virus

Holland's 17th-century tulip craze provides the backdrop for Hermans's middling debut. When British painter Alec Schoeller receives a phone call for help from his beloved paternal uncle, Frank, he rushes over to his uncle's London house, where he finds his battered relative on the brink of death. Frank warns his nephew not to contact the police and to take a 400-year-old book about tulips. While the artist does report the crime to the authorities, he pretends his uncle died before he reached the house, and seeks the truth behind the killing on his own. The present-day action alternates with scenes from 1636 Holland, where tulip mania led to bloodshed. Hermans hits all the obligatory suspense notes, including multiple murders, hostage situations, and a secret men will kill to preserve, but U.S. readers will find nothing particularly new other than the tulip angle. (Apr.)