Yes, van de Wettering is a plodding writer. Yes, his detectives don't do much detecting in this book.

But give him credit for his strengths, including characterization, and for even attempting the bizarre marriage of Zen and the mystery novel.

If you want a Dutch-flavored detective, read Baantjer. In Van de Wettering's books, the cops are far too unearthly to be nailed down to a specific locale; the Netherlands is just as good a place as any to borrow street names from.

All that said, "The Japanese Corpse" is not his best effort. He does seem quite uncomfortable trying to navigate the Japanese scenes, and character motivation is either too blunt (girlfriend and cat die, therefore you punch out punks who are torturing another kitty) or essentially nonexistent.

The beautiful Joanne Andrews goes to the police looking for her missing boyfriend. The search for him takes Grijpstra and De Gier into the world of art dealers, Yazuka and Zen treasures.

_The Japanese Corpse_ manages to be emotionally affecting, despite the unrealism of the scenes in Japan. Van De Wetering is more emotionally extreme than usual as he leads De Gier into personal tragedy on his way to solving the mystery.

I've not read a Van de Wetering book that I didn't enjoy-- his ruminitive detectives are just my speed. This is slightly flawed compared to some of the others (_Death of a Hawker_, _The Blond Baboon_), but still enjoyable reading.

One of the best Amsterdam Cops mysteries by Janwillem van de Wetering. The author, once a monk in Japanese Zen monastry I visited while in Kyoto, relies heavily on his in-depth knowledge of Japanese culture and customs. Van de Wetering has an eye for detail without neglecting the plot.

In this fifth book of the Grijpstra en de Gier sequence, the commisaris plays a more central role than ever before. The character of commisaris - as the author tells us in one of his interviews - is a blend of his late Kyoto Zen master, his father, and the chief inspector of the Amsterdam police, when van de Wetering served as a cop in this force.

True, the book is a bit on the extreme. Especially the scenes with the Yakuza. But then again, if it were too realistic it wouldn't be a real van de Wetering or good entertainment for that matter. If you like unorthodox books, you will love this one. I most certainly did.

Van de Wetering had created a couple of human and clever detectives. In this novel, things go astray. Grijprtra is getting old and sour, De Gier is turning into a silly mistycist (although van de Wetering loves and protects him). Some dialogues are completely unbelievable, the resolution of the murder comes out of the blue, and the drum and flute duets are gone. Only the commisaris retains part of his charm. I think I will re-read "Death of a hawker" and cry.

A subtle, complex mystery by a writer of unexpected cool. I love nearly all his books, and this is my favorite. On my all-time great mysteries list.

His style is unusual and deeply comical or perhaps comically deep. You have to read him for yourself to really understand. For me it was love at first book.

The book blended interesting strands of South American voodoo and Amsterdman red-light district life. I liked the book, but did not find the end convincing. I could not believe the police would accept the "shocking truth". Still, I liked the book's atmosphere. A sort of Dutch, latter-day film noir.

Janwillem Van De Wetering is an odd duck; I understood his mysteries much better after reading his books on Zen Buddhism, which I highly recommend. Also, his book about Robert Van Gulick will lead you to the Judge Dee mysteries which are very fascinating, and there are a lot of them, so between Van de Wetering and Gulick, you don't run out of books to read for quite a while. That is a mystery lover's greatest fantasy, a LOT of interesting books to read.

I must agree with my friend from Forest Hills, New York. The ending does make you scratch your head a piece. However, I have read The Butterfly Hunter and The Japanese Corpse, and this is the man's style for sure. However, I have always detected something very very unusual in his work and something very very American here. The work rings of Heinrich Boll in places, but something intuitive tells me otherwise. You may find the vulgar racial resonations of Det. Grijpstra's work associates uninspiring, but alas.

I've always wondered what happened to Frank Serpico, he did vanish to the same part of the world as Van De Wetering and he was fond of this kind of urban detective fiction. But maybe this is reaching . . . but not as reaching as the ending of this book. I enjoyed it none the less.

The star rating is an anomaly; of course most of the stories are good. But they have, with only 3 exceptions, *already been published* in the books "The Sergeant's Cat" and "Mangrove Mama". If you already have these books, unless you're a truly rabid afficionado, don't bother with this one. Why? The remaining 3 are not very good stories, rating only 1 star.

If you're new to Van de Wetering, you shouldn't start here anyway. Buy "Outsider in Amsterdam" (5 stars) instead.

(Note: this review is "for the hardcover version only", because only hardcover buyers could have purchased Mangrove Mama, and only vdW. lovers would own The Sergeant's Cat (1987, out of print).)

This was the first Grijpstra/De Gier book I'd read, and it hooked me (along with all my friends who've since borrowed it). The short stories provide a quick introduction to the characters and give a tantalizing look into the Zen aspects of van de Wetering's writing. Very approachable. Very fun to read. I particularly enjoyed the artillery shell story. You'll have to read it to understand. :-)

Athough I am a keen reader of Janwillem van de Wetering's books, I can not recommend on this one. The novel consists of a miserable attempt at writing an international suspence roman and is hardly worth the paper it is printed on.

The copy I read was published in Dutch, which is one of the two original languages in which van de Wetering writes all his books. At that time his command of Dutch was still better than his English, later this swopped.

Though I have stuck it in my precious collection of van de Wetering's books, I am afraid I will never read it again.