The Rattle-Rat

The Rattle-Rat is one of a series of Dutch police procedurals taking place in the early 1980s. In this installment, the detectives have to find the murderer of a corpse found in a burning dory floating in the Amsterdam harbor. The victim came from Friesland, on the northern edge of the Netherlands, and so there most of the action takes place.

The mystery plays second fiddle to the interactions between the detectives, to jokes about Friesland and to showing how the changing roles of women affect everyone. There's a lot of odd comedy, which I couldn't tell if it was Dutch humor or simply the author's own, but I found it very funny with a weird combination of sarcasm and charm. The title of the novel comes from the rat they are asked to show more petsit in exchange for using the house of a Friesian police officer on holiday. The rat, Eddy, rattles rather than squeaks and his behavior, as well as the reactions of people to him, made him a suitable choice for the title.

The changing role of women in the Netherlands is a major theme in this novel. For the most part, van de Wetering handles the subject with agility and humor although, to modern ears, a few of his jokes misfire badly. He almost, but not quite, manages to make the female characters as fully real as the male detectives. Here, the lead detective, the commissaris, speaks on the phone to his assistant:

"Have Grijpstra called. He should phone me." The commissaris waited. The phone was quiet. "Dear?"
"Sir?"
"Is that understood?"
"You didn't finish your request."
"My request is quite finished."
"No," the soft female voice said. "You never said 'please,' so I'm still waiting, as is customary these modern days."
"What are you?" the commissaris asked. "A communist? A feminist? I gave you an order. I don't have to say 'please.'"
"I'm not your slave."
"Please," the commissaris said, "dear."
"Thank you," the secretary said. "I won't insist that you call me 'miss.'"
"Is that so?" the commissaris asked. "The new rule allows for exceptions?"
"I think you're a dear, too," the soft voice said. The telephone clicked.
The commissaris watered his begonias, while reflecting. They were right, he thought in between his reflections. They were abused, yelled at, repressed, underpaid, and over-worked. It had to come to an end, but why today?

The appeal of this book lays in the characters that van de Wetering has created. I'll be looking for other titles in the series. show less

I read this last spring--last winter, if you don't live in Ireland--and so don't trust myself to give an accurate summary of it. But half a year later it's still the funniest book I've read this year and I actually feel sure it will amuse me just as much when I read it again. An intelligent book, too: What an author less clever might have made broad farce is in Rattle-Rat absurdly comic instead. Probably unlikely to appeal to devotees of detective stories as though plot is beneath it all strong enough and characters are distinct one from the others, both elements are larksih rather than formulaic.

Weak, and coming from van de Wetering, sad: Van de Wetering had created a couple of human and clever detectives. In this novel, things go astray. Grijprtra is getting old and sour, De Gier is turning into a silly mistycist (although van de Wetering loves and protects him). Some dialogues are completely unbelievable, the resolution of the murder comes out of the blue, and the drum and flute duets are gone. Only the commisaris retains part of his charm. I think I will re-read "Death of a hawker" and cry.

This is the first, and probably the only, book I will read from this author. The concept of the story is interesting. I ran into several sections and or sentences that read as though the translator was unable to make the section or sentence make sense in english. This book was not one I truly enjoyed.