In The Spotlight: Nicolas Freeling’s Double Barrel

Hello, All,

Welcome to another edition of In The Spotlight. Nicolas Freeling is not as well-known as some other crime fiction authors who’ve held up a mirror to post-war society. But his well-regarded series featuring Inspector Van der Valk of the Amsterdam police was a clear-eyed look at ordinary people negotiating the new post-war landscape. So today, let’s take a closer look at the fourth in the Van der Valk series, Double Barrel.

Double Barrel begins when Van der Valk is summoned to his superior’s office and given an odd assignment. The small town of Zwinderen has an unusual and very troubling problem: a rash of disturbing anonymous letters sent to various people in the town. Anonymous letters are, of course, not so unusual. But these notes have resulted more or less directly in two suicides and one complete mental breakdown. The local police have asked questions and done some investigation, but they haven’t been able to find out who’s responsible for the letters nor what hidden secrets would drive someone to madness or suicide. So Van der Valk is asked to go to Zwinderen with his wife Arlette and find out the truth. He’s also told that he probably won’t get much from the closed-mouth residents if he makes it public that he’s there as an investigator. So he’s given the “cover” of a Ministry of the Interior study. Zwinderen has recently begun to boom with new industry and prosperity, so Van der Valk will pretend to be studying the effects of the new order of things.

Van der Valk is reluctant to take this assignment, but he accepts. The Van der Valks arrive in Zwinderen and take up residence. Very soon, the couple learns a great deal about the character of the town, and it’s not long before we see why someone would be so upset about an anonymous letter as to commit suicide. Zwinderen is the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone else. Window shades are not drawn (or the other residents will gossip about what might be going on behind the shades) and people think nothing of peering into others’ homes as they walk by. Moreover, the town has a strong, solid conservative mindset. Anyone who doesn’t live up to the strict standards of conduct imposed by this attitude becomes the subject of gossip. The letters accuse those who receive them of ungodly conduct (and are specific, too) and threaten to reveal the truth if the recipient doesn’t pay blackmail money.

Bit by bit, Van der Valk gets to know some of the residents, and finds out a little more about their lives. As it turns out, the people who’ve received the letters aren’t really guilty of the terrible immorality of which they’re accused. When we find out exactly what they have done, it’s easy to say, “So what? Perhaps not the best judgement in some cases, but hardly terrible.”

All of the evidence points to a certain M. Besançon as the author of the letters. Nobody knows very much about him. He’s a French Jew who survived the holocaust and now lives in a small home with a high-walled garden (already a suspicious act from the point of view of the townspeople). He doesn’t have friends nor circulate much socially. Soon enough, Van der Valk is able to show that Besançon didn’t write the letters, but it’s interesting to see how quick the residents are to accuse this unusual “outsider.” In the end, Van der Valk finds out who wrote the letters and why. He also unearths another, far more important secret that has far-reaching implications.

One element that runs through this novel is paranoia. The people of Zwinderen are, by and large, terribly afraid to let down their guards. They’re afraid of any behaviour that might give even the appearance of impropriety. And there’s the natural paranoia that comes with the feeling that one’s being watched. There’s also the paranoia of those who’ve gotten letters. Several won’t admit to having received them – not even to their spouses. What’s effective about this paranoia is that it’s subtle. We see it in nervous glances, dissembling and in some cases, bravado rather than in obvious ways. There’s also paranoia in the attitudes of the townspeople towards the new industry and prosperity that’s come their way. They like living better, but not the new society and its new morality.

Another important theme woven through this novel is a fascinating set of moral questions. There’s the obvious issue of the letters. Is the behaviour really immoral? What about the ethics of writing those letters? But there are other important moral issues raised, too. For instance, Van der Valk uncovers a very important secret in his search for the truth about the letters. When he does, he is confronted with a serious moral and ethical dilemma as he considers what to do with his knowledge. The decision he takes might not be the decision everyone would take, but it is based on what he believes is best course of action.

Arlette Van der Valk also faces a moral dilemma. As a part of her husband’s investigation, he asks her to get to know the neighbours and basically spy on them (‘though without going into their homes or through their things). On one hand, Van der Valk doesn’t ask his wife to do anything illegal. All he asks is that she watch the neighbours’ comings and goings and make notes on what she hears and sees. Frankly, that’s what everyone else in the town does. On the other, Arlette feels extremely uncomfortable with what she considers prying. She regards it as unethical to do that; privacy matters to her. But there’s also the fact that it’s her husband asking this of her, and he’s asking it in the name of finding the author of the letters that started everything. For her, this isn’t an easy matter.

There’s also a thread of prejudice woven through this novel. There’s the prejudice of the locals against any outsiders, even fellow Dutch people. There’s the prejudice that the conservative locals feel against any liberal thinking or innovation. And there’s the prejudice that Arlette, who is French, feels against the Dutch in general and the locals in particular. Van der Valk has his own share of biases and prejudices, too, and they play a role in the novel as well.

Despite the rather dark, small-town-with-secrets atmosphere of the novel, there are also elements of humour. For example, here’s how Freeling describes the local bureaucracy:

 

“Nobody, not even the adjutant – a shrewd enough chap, too – guessed that he [Van der Valk] was a policeman. None of them had any real work to do, and all were delighted to find that superior official from the Ministry of the Interior had little to do, too…and that he had not, apparently, come to disturb their repose. They were all friendly bureaucrats together…and determined that whatever they did, it would take a minimum of one year to do it, because no problem is Unimportant.” 

 

If you’ve ever dealt with a bureaucracy, you understand what Freeling is getting at here…

There are some interesting characters in the novel as well. There’s Van der Valk himself, who’s reflective and thoughtful, ‘though not plodding. He questions his own motives in a very interesting way. Then there’s Arlette Van der Valk, a match for her husband in intelligence and shrewdness. She’s also a match for the locals, and it’s easy to like her. She’s down-to-earth, sensible and a sympathetic character. The characters of the locals are interesting in that they’re not, for the most part, particularly eccentric. On the surface, they’re conventional folks who conform to the local standards. Yet as we get to know them, we see them as humans – as real people with real personal issues. It’s interesting to get to know them.

There are touches of the police procedural here, too. Van der Valk uses evidence that’s been found and what witnesses tell him to get to the truth. But you couldn’t really call this a full-fledged police procedural. Instead, it’s a small-town mystery with some very ominous undertones beneath the perfect exterior. Double Barrel also explores important questions of ethics and morality, as well as some troubling issues of prejudice. But what’s your view? Have you read Double Barrel? If you have, what elements do you see in it?
 
 

 

Coming Up On In The Spotlight

Monday 7 November/Tuesday 8 November – Mermaid – Margaret Millar

Monday 14 November/Tuesday 15 November – The Bushman Who Came Back – Arthur Upfield

Monday 21 November/Tuesday 22 November – Track of the Cat – Nevada Barr