Meeting at an Amsterdam restaurant for dinner, two couples move from small talk to the wrenching shared challenge of their teenage sons' act of violence that has triggered a police investigation and revealed the extent to which each family will go to protect those they love.

Amsterdam in the year 1705. It is Thea Brandt's eighteenth birthday. She is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms, but life at home is increasingly difficult. Her father Otto and her Aunt Nella argue endlessly over their financial fate, selling off furniture in a desperate attempt to hold on to the family home. As catastrophe threatens to engulf the household, Thea seeks refuge in Amsterdam's playhouses. She loves the performances, and the stolen...

"Henry Dorn has spent years building a family, but it only takes a single afternoon for it to fall apart. Abruptly widowed of the love of his life, Henry buys a steamer ticket for Amsterdam, the city of his heritage, hoping to start life anew. Nothing could have prepared him for the young woman he mets on the ship: the fiery, self- sufficient Lydia Pearce, one of a new generation of women..."--dust jacket.

"No matter how beautiful, vital and cheery a city may be, pure human emotions such as greed, jealousy, and the thrist for revenge will rear their ugly heds...with all their negative consequences. Amsterdam is a multidimensional city, populated by a whole assortment of social groups, and not all of those groups agree on what constitues normal social values and mores. This results in a lively mix...and, as you will see, in problems." -- from publisher....

A sensual tale of art, lust, and deception—now a major motion picture
In 1630s Amsterdam, tulipomania has seized the populace. Everywhere men are seduced by the fantastic exotic flower. But for wealthy merchant Cornelis Sandvoort, it is his young and beautiful wife, Sophia, who stirs his soul. She is the prize he desires, the woman he hopes will bring him the joy that not even his considerable fortune can buy.
Cornelis yearns...

A man recalls his past life as a respected Parisian lawyer until his predicted downfall, in one terrible instant.

Charlie Howard doesn't just write books about a career thief, he also happens to be one.In Amsterdam working on his latest novel, Charlie is approached by a mysterious American who asks him to steal two apparently worthless monkey figurines from two separate addresses on the same night. At first, he says no. Then he changes his mind. Only later, kidnapped and bound to a chair, the American very dead, and a spell in police custody behind him, does...

Police Inspector Piet Van der Valk becomes involved in an extraordinary case when he crosses the path of a pretty daughter of a famous dead conductor.

Maria van Buren, a beautiful, high-class prostitute, is found dead with a knife in her back in her houseboat on an Amsterdam canal. Grijpstra and de Gier must solve the murder. Her tony clients all have sound alibis. Before the murderer is caught, the detectives and their commissaris will investigate allegations of black magic, travel to Curaçao, and pursue clues to a chilly island off the coast of Holland.