Tangled Web UK Review May 2009
Close-up by
Esther Verhoef
hbk out April 09
Published by Quercus
at £16.99
Standard stuff I thought, as the first few pages of Esther Verhoef’s prizewinning Dutch thriller flitted by. Chilling opening chapter as cold-blooded killer carries out premeditated murder, a hint of more to come (not just murders, but chapters too). Margot, a spirited, capable but vulnerable young woman, pulling herself together after a painful separation, takes herself off to London, finds herself in tourist hell (“cosy Victorian hotel in the pulsating heart of London” anyone?). So she contacts Leon, the charismatic guy she chatted with on the plane, who tentatively but confidently introduces her to the world of art photography, top-class restaurants and hotels, along with a closeness to another human being she has not felt for some time.
Suddenly I’m 100 pages in. 100 pages?! Excellent fluid writing from Verhoef, sharp dialogue, note perfect translating from Paul Vincent. Sure, there’s a strong flavour of fantasy here, only to be expected perhaps in what is clearly intended as a commercial thriller. But you know those feelings of inadequacy, the highs as things go right, the lows that follow. And back home, nothing has changed. Margot quickly feels the claustrophobia of her old life closing in once again. Inevitably, predictably, she follows up a contact from Leon and is soon caught up in the social, artistic and, yes, more freely sexual world that surrounds him. But clearly (and cleverly) catastrophe looms...
Here, Verhoef persuasively combines the changing dynamics of a family coping with the fractured relationship at its heart, with Margot’s growing confidence in herself as she wrestles with her new life, her complicated lover and a strange but exciting milieu that throws up its own share of problems.
Verhoef has been writing highly rated thrillers since 2003, often with her husband Berry. But her greatest fictional success (she has also written highly successful factual books about cats, dogs, not to mention chickens) has come with her later solo efforts. Both her Rendezvous (2006) then this one, were awarded the Dutch Silver Fingerprint, an award for best thriller voted on by the Dutch public from a field that includes translated work from around the world.
It’s not just the plot development that occurs just under half-way through (unwisely singled out for mention on the book-jacket), there is always something too good to be true about the on-message Leon. Those creepy, calmly deliberate, intermittent chapters from the killer’s point of view also unsettle, whilst later plot developments succeed brilliantly in
keeping our eye off the ball. And finally Verhoef brings the book to a totally unexpected conclusion.
Close-Up not only works well as a thriller but also as an always interesting portrait of a woman groping her way into the light. The ending is nicely ambiguous. Not one solely for Nicci French fans, but for anyone who prizes sharp intelligent thriller writing, free of many of the usual clichés.
(
Bob Cornwell
)
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