Janwillem van de Wetering Books In Order

Publication Order of Amsterdam Cops Mysteries Books

Publication Order of Hugh Pine Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Janwillem van-de-Wetering
Janwillem van de Wetering was born February 12, 1931 in Rotterdam, where he also grew up. He spent his later years living in places like Colombia, Australia, South Africa, Amsterdam, Peru, and Japan. He also lived in Surry, Maine, which wound up being the setting of two of his Grijpstra and de Gier books and his kid’s series about Hugh Pine the porcupine.

He studied Zen under Oda Sesso’s guidance, together with Walter Nowick. He lived a year in Daitoku-0ji and half a year with Nowick, and described these experiences in “The Empty Mirror”.

In his many travels and experiences in a Zen Buddhist monastery and being a member of the Amsterdam Reserve Constabulary (being a policeman in one’s spare time” like he phrased it in his intro to “Outsider in Amsterdam”) lend some authenticity to his works of non-fiction and fiction.

For “Maine Massacre” he won the French Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere in the year 1984.

“Grijpstra & De Gier”, based off the novel “Outsider in Amsterdam”, was released in the Netherlands and “Rattlerat”, released in 1987. both of which featured scripts written by Wim Verstappen. “Der Blond Affe”, based off “The Blond Baboon”, was released in Germany in the year 1985. In 2004, a television series based off the Grijpstra and de Gier characters began airing on Dutch television, with thirty episodes being made and Roef Ragas and Jack Wouterse playing youthful versions of de Gier and Grijpstra.

He died in Blue Hill, Maine on July 4, 2008 at the age of 77.

“Death of a Hawker” is the fourth novel in the “Grijpstra-de Gier Mysteries” series and was released in the year 1977. A riot erupted in New Market Square, and transformed the typically sedate streets in Amsterdam into merely a mass of angry protesters. So when the corpse of the “King” of the local street market is discovered in his home with his head having been bashed in, the cops are puzzled.

The adjoining street has been closed off for the whole day, and the constables stationed just outside of the crime scene did not detect any kind of unusual activity. There are only two people that could have reasonably committed this violent act: the victim’s beautiful sister downstairs and his roommate upstairs. Both are claiming they saw or heard nothing suspicious when the crime was taking place. But there is something that just is not adding up here. Could one of them actually be the killer?

“The Maine Massacre” is the seventh novel in the “Grijpstra-de Gier Mysteries” series and was released in the year 1979. The aging Commissaris has come to this country in order to settle his sister’s affairs after her husband’s death. On the pretext of taking up a visiting fellowship in order to study American police methods, the dashing de Gier has followed close behind to make sure the frail old man gets taken care of.

What he finds is an alien landscape and a society where violence and guns are just accepted as a part of everyday life. He also finds a series of deaths which appear to be connected in a most suspicious manner, a local population that is obviously protecting each other, a gorgeous woman that could be the number one suspect, and a subtle and staunch ally in the local chief of police.

“The Rattle-Rat” is the tenth novel in the “Grijpstra-de Gier Mysteries” series and was released in the year 1985. Douwe Scherjoen was a well to do livestock dealer from the remote Dutch province of Friesland. But then his corpse was discovered, having been half charred by the flames, just floating in a dory in Amsterdam’s harbor. Nobody knows why he was in the nation’s capital, far away from the bucolic pleasures of his native village in Dingjum.

But since Grijpstra is Friesian by birth and is able to understand the dialect, both he and his partner de Gier are sent to find the murderer. Or at least the motive for the crime, anyway. And they learn that while nobody, not even his own wife, even liked the victim, the culprit is the unlikeliest suspect there is.

“Hard Rain” is the eleventh novel in the “Grijpstra-de Gier Mysteries” series and was released in the year 1986. On a stormy night in Amsterdam, a banker called Martin Ijsbreker gets killed by a sniper while sitting by an open window at his home along the Binnekant Canal. Three junkies then enter Ijsbreker’s home, then arrange his death to make it look like a suicide and steal some valuables for which they’re going to get paid for in heroin.

The very next day these addicts are discovered dead of overdoses in a houseboat on the Binnenkant, and Chief Inspector Halba, who is in charge of the Murder Brigade as his superior, the commissaris, is on vacation, just dismisses their deaths as being accidental.

The commissaris and his trusted subordinates, Adjuntant Grijpstra and Sergeant de Gier, suspect these four deaths on the canal are connected, especially since Ijsbreker had been an officer at the Banque du Credit and linked to its nefarious affiliate, the Society for Help Abroad, each of which were run by the evil Willem Fernandus.

However the virtuous triumvirate get ordered off of the case and are relieved of their duties by Amsterdam’s corrupt police chief. How can they possibly catch a gang of murderous criminals while, like de Gier puts it, they’re the only good guys left?

“Murder by Remote Control” is a stand alone novel that was released in the year 1986. There’s no lack of suspects after a notorious oil tycoon gets murdered in the midst of his plans to establish his oil refinery in the pristine Maine wilderness.

Could the killer be the local defender against outsider encroachment, the libidinous eccentric, a privacy-minded New Yorker, the retired movie star, or somebody else?

This trippy detective story, that unfolds in a sequential art format and filled hypnotic imagery, combines the talents of internationally renowned mystery author Janwillem van de Wetering with those of acclaimed artist Paul Kirchner.