An anti-capitalist group sets off a bomb in Frankfurt, killing the board members of two companies as they sign off on a merger. Inspector Anders, an Italian seconded to Interpol is assigned to help the German police with the case. As he criss-crosses Europe chasing false leads, from former Baader-Meinhof associates to respected economics professors and journalists, the group begins to eliminate his suspects for him in increasingly grisly and bizarre ways. Each time, they quote part of a fifteenth century satire, the Ship of Fools.
After switching between Frankfurt, Munich, Brussels and Paris, the action settles in Strasbourg where another corporate merger is underway. The terrorist group begin to pick off the directors of these two banks, one by one, and Inspector Anders is drawn into a race to unmask the group.
The book was slow to start, and at first I found it hard to like Anders, a tired, solitary, patient and polite man of few words, constantly plagued by chafing from his prosthetic leg. The first part of the book was a bit chaotic, probably reflecting the lack of concrete information available to detectives and the false trails they follow. However, once settled in Strasbourg, the plot tightens, suspense begins to build, and Anders becomes more likeable.
I liked the premise of the plot, which makes a nice change from the straight-out murders of most detective novels and gives the author more interesting characters to play with. Anders is not my favourite fictional detective (that’s a tie between Murray Whelan and Phryne Fisher), but on the basis of Ship of Fools, I’d be happy to read more of his adventures.
Inspector Anders and the Ship of Fools
Marshall Browne
Duffy & Snellgrove 2001
