Back to the Coast

Maria Vos, the narrator of Noort’s taut psychological suspense novel, is a bit of a mess. The mother of two children from two different lovers, she decides to terminate her latest pregnancy without telling the father, with whom she performs in a local Amsterdam band. Following the procedure, Vos begins to receive hate mail, complete with graphic images of aborted fetuses. After an undertaker appears at her door to claim her corpse, she takes the kids to stay with her sister on the Dutch coast. While Vos is away, someone burns down her house, destroying the letters that are the only independent evidence of her nemesis. The police, aware of Vos’s family history of mental instability, suspect she set the fire herself and imagined the threats. Noort (The Dinner Club ) does a splendid job of leaving the reader unsure whether or not to trust Vos’s account. Those who appreciate intelligent writing and emotionally plausible characters will be rewarded. (June)