The book tells the story of a medical malpractice of which Mira Roes is the victim. Together with her husband, she tries to get justice for herself, but the specialist has friends in the system everywhere, and the married couple run into a brick wall. An old Jewish friend, Kalman Teller, comes to their aid and hires the private detective Jager Havix. But an important witness is murdered before he can talk, and Havik’s trail seems to run cold.

Gauke Andriesse’s fluid style, his rich language and his character portrayal make The Hands of Kalman Keller a surprising book. The reader’s sympathy is unreservedly with the married couple that is so unjustly brushed aside by the establishment. With apparent nonchalance, judges, lawyers, hospital managers and doctors walk roughshod over the victims and are unaffected by the pain that they cause others.

Only very gradually does the writer intimate why it is that the immensely wealthy Kalman Teller acts on their behalf and pushes Havix to keep on with his investigation. And what role the hands mentioned in the title actually play. His past is almost impossible to describe, and Andriesse is also good at putting this into words. The Hands of Kalman Teller is, then, worthy in all respects of the label a literary thriller.