Kisling & Verhuyck

All of the novels written by the husband-and wife team Kisling & Verhuyck – crime novelist Corine Kisling (b. 1954) and literary scholar Paul Verhuyck (b. 1940) – enter into a dialogue with the past. In Kwelgeest (Geest, 2008), the intrigue involved a missing section of the 15th-century manuscript of Tijl Uilenspiegel, while De duim van Alva (Alva’s Thumb, 2010) revolved around the bloody and haunting legacy of the Spanish Iron Duke in the city of Antwerp. Their plots are intelligent, the prose is well paced and the authors take obvious pleasure in creating lines of connection throughout the history of Western Europe.

Alva’s Thumb

(De Arbeiderspers, 2010, 237 pages)

Portraying humanity as a drama full of horror is going rather far for an exciting book. Blood flows through Antwerp when the annual Whitsun Fair is in full swing. Every year, aggression during the festival weeks seems to reach a great climax. Is this because of the noisy commotion, the people enticed by the attractions – or has it got to do with the past? The fair is held on the square where the Duke of Alba had his citadel built at the beginning of the Eighty Years War – the Iron Duke who, according to reports, inflicted a terrible and agonising death on eighteen thousand Netherlanders.

Black Lace

(De Arbeiderspers, 2011, 272 pages)

A garter belonging to Marie Antoinette and a collection of pornographic sonnets by Pietro Aretino have roles to play in the latest thriller from Dutch-Flemish writing team Kisling & Verhuyck. Black Lace grippingly combines the history of the French Revolution with a blood feud in a village in the Dordogne.