The Reunion

Sabine has been off work for a year due to Depression and as the book opens she is returning to her work at a bank for half-days only. During her absence a woman called Renee seems to have taken over the small office and she makes it clear that she is now in charge and Sabine will have to do exactly as she says. At the same time as she is coping with this situation Sabine is starting to remember events from when she was a teenager and her classmate Isabel disappeared, seemingly forever.

Sabine is a very well drawn character. As a young teenager she is realistically shown as the victim of bullying and ostracism and as a troubled young woman she is also depicted very naturally. Both the way her struggle to deal with Depression is shown as show more a daily hurdle rather than something which can be forever banished and the fragmented way her memory of the traumatic period from her earlier days returns both had a particularly credible feel to them for me. I felt everything from empathy (for the office bullying) to annoyance (because she didn’t change her locks immediately her odd boyfriend started displaying his true nature) for Sabine and it’s always a sign of good characterisation when I am engaged in this way. There are solid minor characters too including Olaf, the aforementioned odd boyfriend, and Renee, the office bully (who I failed to feel much for when something horrid happened to her).

The novel really is full of suspense. The events that surrounded Isabel’s disappearance are slowly revealed over the course of the story but at each turn a potential new culprit comes to light. What did the creepy school caretaker have to do with the disappearance? Which of the many boys who lusted after Isabel played a role? Robin, Sabine’s much-loved older brother? Bart her own teenage boyfriend who kept their relationship a secret? Or perhaps Olaf, Sabine’s current boyfriend who is reluctant to talk of his own link to Isabel? Although she now lives in Amsterdam Sabine keeps returning to the small town where she grew up in an effort to help the memories that she has locked away to resurface so there is a constant juxtaposition between the present and the past which helps to flesh the story out.

I did think perhaps the author was trying a little too hard to misdirect readers down a particular line of reasoning. This perversely made me guess the real ending relatively early on in one of those ‘if she wants me to think A then the real solution can only be B’ thought processes that I sometimes have when reading crime fiction. I also found myself wondering at several loose ends left at the end of the book, including what might have become of all the other missing girls that Sabine uncovers in her search for the truth surrounding Isabel’s disappearance.

However the novel has much to commend it, not least its very reasonable length, its sensitive translation by a new (to me) translator Michele Hutchison, the fact it is a standalone novel, its excellent characters and the very satisfactory build-up of suspense that kept me up late one night. I am looking forward to reading Simone van der Vlugt’s next novel Shadow Sister (due to be published in English in December this year). show less

Isabel Hartman went missing on a hot day in May, nine years ago. She was riding home from school but never got there. We were fifteen.

In primary school Sabine Kroese and Isabel had been best friends, but then they had grown apart. Isabel had grown tired of Sabine and she and her friends bullied her, making Sabine's life a misery.

Now, nine years on, Sabine is working in an office in a bank in Amsterdam pulling her life together after an absence of nearly a year from work due to a nervous breakdown. Sabine's return to work does not go smoothly. She seems a lot less competent at her job than she used to be, and someone has usurped her role as acknowledged head of the office. Life there is made more bearable by the discovery that Olaf, a show more friend of her brother's is now working in the IT department.

Sabine can remember very little of the day that Isabel went missing, just fragments, but now bits are coming back. The fact that her old school is organising a reunion draws Sabine back to the seaside village where she was born. She has no intention of attending the reunion. Each time returns to the village a little more of her memory comes back. She is convinced that she must have seen who killed Isabel and has been repressing the memory ever since.

THE REUNION builds rather slowly, but gradually the reader comes to believe too that eventually Sabine will be able to identify the Isabel's killer. THE REUNION is thick with clues if only we could see them, but when you are told things out of context, they have significance only in hindsight. The range of possible explanations narrows down, and simultaneously it feels as if, when Sabine does remember, she will be in great danger.

The writing style feels deceptively simple, and I think that comes from the fact that until this point Van Der Vlugt had written only children's books. I particularly like this cover image, and after you've read the book, you'll understand its significance.

In the final pages of the book are some notes from the author, giving the reader a little background to the book, and then a set of questions (for discussion groups) about aspects of the story. show less

For some reason the epithet "thriller" is applied to this story, I cannot really see why. I enjoyed reading this book by Simone van der Vlugt, mainly because it was an easy and fairly gripping read in Dutch. Apparently, the author lives in my hometown. The book is available in an English translation.

Last and, I fear, least is The Reunion by Dutch writer Simone van der Vlugt, one of those cold case stories in which repressed memories start to resurface, bringing nothing but uncertainty and unhappiness.

Following a nervous breakdown, Sabine has spent many months off work and on her return must deal not only demotion but unwanted recollections of when her friend Isabel disappeared nine years ago.

Dutch thriller writers – and their translators – appear to have some way to go before they catch up to the Scandinavians but, to be fair, this is a reasonable read.

Not the freshest or most innovative catalogue of plots but decent writing with generally few surprises, there is little here – with the possible exception of Gruber – to show more tempt summer readers out of the sunshine and into the pages. show less

READ IN DUTCH

Heb dit boek gelezen vanwege alle lovende kritieken die ik er over hoorde, maar kan het daar niet mee eens zijn. De personages spreken me niet aan, de schrijfstijl is niet super en het verhaal leek het meest op een mix van de boeken 'Het geheugenspel' (óók over Recovered Memories) & 'Bezeten van mij' (Bezitterige (ex)vriend), beiden boeken van Nicci French. Ook had ik al op de helft het einde geraden. Daardoor snap ik eigenlijk niet wat men zo goed aan dit boek vindt; na het lezen van dit boek zou ik Simone Van Der Vlught aan willen raden om weer kinderboeken te gaan schrijven, die waren een stuk beter.

De aankondiging van een reunie van haar middelbare school brengt bij een jonge vrouw herinneringen terug aan de nooit opgeloste verdwijning van een klasgenote.

The blurb makes this book look really interesting, but I found it to be quite boring - to the point where I couldn't even make it to my usual 50 pages before giving up. Don't bother with it.