Winner of the Hercule Poirot Prize for Best Crime Novel - Winner of the USA Best Book Award 2014 in the category Fiction: mystery/suspense It is 1870, and Paris is in turmoil. As the social and political turbulence of the Franco-Prussian War roils the city, workers starve to death while aristocrats seek refuge in orgies and séances. The Parisians are trapped like rats in their beautiful city but a series of gruesome murders captures their fascination and distracts them from the realities of war. The killer leaves lines from the recently deceased Charles Baudelaire's controversial anthology Les Fleurs du Mal on each corpse, written in the poet's exact handwriting. Commissioner Lefevre, a lover of poetry and a veteran of the Algerian war, is on the case, and his investigation is a thrilling, intoxicating journey into the sinister side of human nature, bringing to mind the brooding and tense atmosphere of Patrick Susskind's Perfume. Did Baudelaire rise from the grave? Did he truly die in the first place? The plot dramatically appears to extend as far as the court of the Emperor Napoleon III. A vivid, intelligent, and intense historical crime novel that offers up some shocking revelations about sexual mores in 19th century France, this superb mystery illuminates the shadow life of one of the greatest names in poetry.

Baudelaire's Revenge: A Novel

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Van Laerhoven, Bob

Mystery

Pegasus Books

Winner of the Hercule Poirot Prize for Best Crime Novel - Winner of the USA Best Book Award 2014 in the category Fiction: mystery/suspense "A decadent tale. Commissioner Lefevre's philosophical discussions with artists and poets and a creepy Belgian dwarf are fascinating."--Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review It is 1870, and Paris is in turmoil. As the social and political turbulence of the Franco-Prussian War roils the city, workers starve to death while aristocrats seek refuge in orgies and séances. The Parisians are trapped like rats in their beautiful city but a series of gruesome murders captures their fascination and distracts them from the realities of war. The killer leaves lines from the recently deceased Charles Baudelaire's controversial anthology Les Fleurs du Mal on each corpse, written in the poet's exact handwriting. Commissioner Lefevre, a lover of poetry and a veteran of the Algerian war, is on the case, and his investigation is a thrilling, intoxicating journey into the sinister side of human nature, bringing to mind the brooding and tense atmosphere of Patrick Susskind's Perfume. Did Baudelaire rise from the grave? Did he truly die in the first place? The plot dramatically appears to extend as far as the court of the Emperor Napoleon III. A vivid, intelligent, and intense historical crime novel that offers up some shocking revelations about sexual mores in 19th century France, this superb mystery illuminates the shadow life of one of the greatest names in poetry.

Baudelaire's Revenge

Pegasus Crime

The Shadow Of The Mole

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Next Chapter

Review\nThe Shadow Of The Mole by Bob Van Laerhoven is an intense and powerful blend of mystery and history(...)The novel has dramatic depths that it displays effectively. After all, war can change any man. You can't help but feel anxious to learn The Mole's true identity (...)Bob Van Laerhoven never misses the opportunity to flesh out his characters, to give you insight as to who they are. Psychology as a discipline plays an important part in the plot and Laerhoven effectively embeds it in your consciousness through appropriate references. The Shadow of the Mole is as enigmatic as it is powerful. It is written with skill in the way it weaves scientific analysis with the inner lives of its characters. It's a must-read for anyone who enjoys a cerebral story with a great blend of mystery, history, and psychoanalysis." Five Stars 
Vincent Dublado - Readers' Favorite -\nThis novel is interesting, it has depth in its many layers that construct the story. Sometimes it felt disjointed and I wondered how all the elements would come together, but that's the intriguing part. They do come together, in a surprising way. That, I suppose is what makes it different in structure from others. (...)The writing is sharp and to the point, we move from one moment to the next with The Mole's stories in-between. The depictions of the war as the backdrop to the story are haunting and felt very real. In parts of this story, you could imagine yourself there and pondered just how your own mind would react. The story is definitely a thriller, with the mystery of whom the Mole is, interlaced with the psychoanalysis from his physicians. Add in the stories The Mole writes with the backdrop of war and you've got one interesting story that will leave you pondering the why/ how war affects one's mind. 
Hayley's Book Room:\n1916, Bois de Bolante, France. The battles in the trenches are raging fiercer than ever. In a deserted mineshaft, French sappeurs discover an unconscious man, and nickname him The Mole. 
Claiming he has lost his memory, The Mole is convinced that he's dead, and that an Other has taken his place. The military brass considers him a deserter, but front physician and psychiatrist-in-training Michel Denis suspects that his patient's odd behavior is stemming from shellshock, and tries to save him from the firing squad. 
The mystery deepens when The Mole begins to write a story in écriture automatique that takes place in Vienna, with Dr. Josef Breuer, Freud's teacher, in the leading role. Traumatized by the recent loss of an arm, Denis becomes obsessed with him, and is prepared to do everything he can to unravel the patient's secret. 
Set against the staggering backdrop of the First World War, The Shadow Of The Mole is a thrilling tableau of loss, frustration, anger, madness, secrets and budding love. The most urgent question in this extraordinary story is: when, how, and why reality shifts into delusion?

Scars of the Heart: Short Stories

Alejandro's Lie

United States

Alejandro's Lie is The Best Political Thriller of 2021 in the Best Thriller Book Awards on BestThrillers.com\nTerreno, 1983, Latin America. After a dictatorship of ten years, the brutal junta, led by general Pelarón, seems to waver. 
Alejandro Juron, guitarist of the famous poet and folk singer Victor Pérez who's been executed by the junta, is released from the infamous prison "The Last Supper." The underground resistance wants Alejandro to participate in its fight again. But Alejandro has changed. 
Consumed with guilt by the death of his friend Victor, whom he betrayed to his tormentors, Alejandro becomes the unintended center of a web of intrigue that culminates in a catastrophic insurrection, and has to choose between love and escape. 
A love story, a thriller and an analysis of the mechanisms that govern a dictatorship, Alejandro's Lie is a gripping novel about violence, betrayal, resistance, corruption, guilt and love.

Terreno, 1983, Latin America. After a dictatorship of ten years, the brutal junta, lead by general Pelarón, seems to waver. 
Alejandro Juron, guitarist of the famous poet and folk singer Victor Pérez who's been executed by the junta, is released from the infamous prison "The Last Supper." The underground resistance wants Alejandro to participate in its fight again. But Alejandro has changed. 
Consumed with guilt by the death of his friend Victor, whom he betrayed to his tormentors, Alejandro becomes the unintended center of a web of intrigue that culminates in a catastrophic insurrection, and has to choose between love and escape. 
A love story, a thriller and an analysis of the mechanisms that govern a dictatorship, Alejandro's Lie is a gripping novel about violence, betrayal, resistance, corruption, guilt,and love. 
Alejandro's Lie" is the "Best Political Thriller 2021" in the Best Thriller Book Awards of BestThrillers.com

1995, Japan struggles with a severe economic crisis. Fate brings a number of people together in Hiroshima in a confrontation with dramatic consequences. Xavier Douterloigne, the son of a Belgian diplomat, returns to the city, where he spent his youth, to come to terms with the death of his sister. Inspector Takeda finds a deformed baby lying dead at the foot of the Peace Monument, a reminder of Hiroshima's war history. A Yakuza-lord, rumored to be the incarnation of the Japanese demon Rokurobei, mercilessly defends his criminal empire against his daughter Mitsuko, whom he considers insane. And the punk author Reizo, obsessed by the ultra-nationalistic ideals of his literary idol Mishima, recoils at nothing to write the novel that will "overturn Japan's foundations".... Hiroshima’s indelible war-past simmers in the background of this ultra-noir novel. Clandestine experiments conducted by Japanese Secret Service Unit 731 during WWII become unveiled and leave a sinister stain on the reputation of the imperial family and the Japanese society as a whole.

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Crime Wave Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Laerhoven, Bob. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Van Laerhoven, Bob

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Laerhoven, Bob. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Baudelaire's Revenge: A Novel

Baudelaire's Revenge

The Shadow Of The Mole

The Shadow Of The Mole

The Shadow Of The Mole

Scars of the Heart: Short Stories

Alejandro's Lie

Alejandro's Lie

Alejandro's Lie

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