A Dressing of Diamonds [Paperback]

Nicolas Freeling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

A Henri Castang Mystery - For Colette Delavigne, one of France's youngest judges, life takes a terrifying twist when she returns from work one night to find her daughter has been abducted. Henri Castang is sought out to investigate her vanishing and Delavigne's profession seems to have more than a little to do with the disappearance. To Castang this is no ordinary kidnapping.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born in London in 1927, Nicolas Freeling is the author of over thirty titles, many of which are part of the crime genre. His education was broad and he attended a series of schools in England, Ireland and France. He served in the Royal Air Force, and from 1950 worked at various jobs in kitchens, hotels and restaurants throughout Europe. It was this intimate knowledge of the continent that influenced the style and settings of his subsequent books. The first of these was published in 1961. He is best known for the creation of Inspector Piet Van der Valk, an irascible detective engaged in ordinary crime, political intrigue and international affairs. Freeling is married, has four sons and one daughter and currently resides in France.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: House of Stratus Ltd (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842328514
• ISBN-13: 978-1842328514
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,936,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Introducing the Henri Castang, April 21, 2011

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John the Reader "John" (Orlando, FL) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Dressing of Diamonds (Paperback)

As I stated in an earlier review of another Nicolas Freeling book, authors sometimes tire of their fictional heroes long before their loyal readers - Sherlock Holmes and John Le Carre's Smiley come to mind - and then struggle to convincingly, if briefly, resurrect them (Holmes) or convert their readership to accepting a new heroic character. To the stunned disbelief of thousands Freeling killed off his adored Dutch `copper' Piet Van der Valk after a dozen best-selling novels and several runs of a highly popular European TV series. He claimed that as he had relocated from Amsterdam and was now living in France he felt he could no longer accurately reflect the Dutch culture, and he introduced an entirely new policeman Henri Castang in a series that was actually more developed and multi-faceted than the Van der Valk series.

This book, written in 1974 in France, the Dressing of Diamond was the introduction to his readers of Freeling's new genre, based in the torturous procedures of the French Police courts, the story grips from the opening lines and the development of the `new' hero, Henri Castang evolves beautifully.

Freeling, who produced a whole body of work that is distinctly European, explored this character in a far deeper way than his earlier, lighter, if equally fascinating Dutch detective Van der Valk.