A City Solitary

Nicholas Freeling's publisher did him both a favor and a disservice when he declared that Freeling's first novel was a detective story. Love in Amsterdam has a detective, Piet Van der Valk, but the novel makes more sense as literary fiction than as potboiler. The favor is that the Van der Valk character was resurrected and formed the basis for a successful series (with another detective, a Frenchman, to follow). The disservice is that Freeling deserves more credit for his deep character studies than for his scenes of gunplay or detecting. A City Solitary, published in 1985 as a suspense novel, revolves around a middle-aged writer, living in France with his wife, who is attacked in what would now be called a home invasion. The writer is a man out of his time who comes to connect with one of the young criminals. Plot and dialogue take a back seat to character and ideas in this sometimes meandering but ultimately satisfying novel.