A griping thriller. Hewson keeps you gripped and you are desperate to know what is happening.
Will be finding the rest of the series ASAP!

Sleep Baby Sleep by David Hewson.
A Detective Vos thriller by the bestselling author of The Killing Annie Schrijver is just twenty-two-years-old.
She works in the picturesque Albert Cuyp flower market where her father has a stall.
Brimming with personality, she's always been popular with the customers.
But then she goes missing, only to be found barely alive, tied to a stone angel in agraveyard, surrounded by a ring of fire.
Her body contains traces of a drug which connect the police to a previous case: the Sleeping Beauty murders.
But Annie seems to have been the lucky one, as a body is found nearby, freshly tattooed with three words: Sleep Baby Sleep. It is summer and Amsterdam is full of tourists drunk or high on all that it has to offer.
The drum of music from a make-shift DJ booth near the zoo is deafening, and empty frites cones and beer cans litter the streets.
But the atmosphere has sinister undercurrents as a killer is at work in a city where crime pays and tensions run high.
Detective Pieter Vos knows that if he is to outwit the murderer, he will need to employ everything he has to avert a greater tragedy.
Fantastic read with brilliant characters. Gripping and heartstopping read. Could not put this down. 5*. Netgalley and pan macmillan.

Detective Pieter Vos leaves a police ‘do’ early & takes Sam his dog to the local bar Drie Vaten, there’s another dog there & a stranger sitting outside offers to hold on to Sam. A few minutes later Vos realises Sam has been taken. Annie Schrijver is just twenty-two-years-old. She works in the picturesque Albert Cuyp flower market where her father has a stall. Then she goes missing, only to be found barely alive, tied to a stone angel in a graveyard, surrounded by a ring of fire & with Sam by her side. She’s lucky to be alive as there’s another body nearby freshly tattooed with three words: Sleep Baby Sleep.
Her body contains traces of a drug GHB, which connect the police to a previous case: the Sleeping Beauty murders. Detective Pieter Vos knows that if he is to outwit the murderer, he will need to employ everything he has to avert a greater tragedy. Of course he’s not helped by the new station commissaris Jillian Chandra who wants to be kept in the loop.

I freely admit that I’ve loved Hewson’s books for quite a while, the Nic Costa series being one of my favourites so really looked forward to the Vos series & it didn’t disappoint. This is the fourth in the series & whilst it could well be a stand alone book I’d recommend reading the series from the start. The book is everything you’d expect from a David Hewson book so well written, the characterisation is SO good, the plot is fast paced & never lets up. Vos is scruffy & has his own way of investigating, all of which add to his ‘charm’. The descriptive powers of Hewson bring Amsterdam to life. There are plenty of red herrings & I was taken in by them but these all added to the book & at times I wanted to keep on reading & found it hard to put down.

Another super thriller from the author of the Nic Costa series this time based in Amsterdam beautifully described. An unconventional detective leads the investigation into date rape murders with a parallel story concerning a surviving victims family,all characters you can sympathise with. Good stuff!

A well written and very atmospheric thriller. This is the first David Henson book I have read and I will definitely be reading more. Fast paced with plenty of action. There has obviously been a lot of thought and research put into this book and the result is a page turner I would definitely recommend.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for an advance copy of Sleep Baby Sleep, the 4th novel to feature Amsterdam detective, Brigadier Pieter Vos.

Vos is puzzled when someone steals his dog, Sam, and even more puzzled when he receives a text with a series of numbers. As he works out the clues he arrives at a cemetery to find a dead male body and a very drugged young woman, Annie Schrijver. The dead body has a tattoo, Sleep Baby Sleep, which links back to the Sleeping Beauty case Vos and his team solved 4 years previously. As the team struggle to understand the case and what is going on they have to contend with new Comissar Jillian Chandra, her lust for power and control and, probably worst of all, her bureaucratic background which gives her no understanding of investigative practice and a desire for quick solutions.

I thoroughly enjoyed Sleep Baby Sleep. It is a long time since I read The Doll's House, the only one in the series I have read, and I had forgotten the simple elegance of the prose, the clever plotting and keen understanding of human nature in the novels.

The plot is smart and well paced with surprises at every turn. It is impossible to discuss in much detail without issuing spoilers but I swallowed all of Mr Hewson's misdirection and hence all the surprises. There is a clever twist at the end and the only disappointment was the rather pedestrian reasoning behind it all.

The writing is clear, crisp and incisive to the point that I noticed and relished it. It is such a pleasure to read a well written book and not as frequent as I would like. Amsterdam really comes alive in Mr Hewson's hands with its mixture of tourists and locals, the changing landscape in some quarters and the water, be it canals or houseboats.

The characterisation is also excellent from the smart but obstinate Vos, who is not going to change his ways for anyone to the career driven Chandra who will do things her way, as will everyone else, regardless of the cost. The impact on Annie and her family of the attack is extremely well done, from her father's helplessness to her confrontational attitude it seems very natural and realistic and I loved the potential solution to their problems.

Sleep Baby Sleep is a great police procedural but it is also the story of families and how they deal with the aftermath of violence. It is a well rounded novel and I have no hesitation in recommending it as a good read.