Start reading The Public Prosecutor on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

 
 
 

Try it free

Sample the beginning of this book for free

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

Read books on your computer or other mobile devices with our FREE Kindle Reading Apps.
The Public Prosecutor
 
 
Share your own customer images

The Public Prosecutor [Kindle Edition]

Jef Geeraerts (Author), Brian Doyle (Translator)
2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews) |
Digital List Price: £9.73 What's this?
Print List Price: £7.99
Kindle Price: £6.83 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: £1.16 (15%)
Unlike print books, digital books are subject to VAT.

Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition £6.83   -- --
Paperback £7.19   -- --

Product Description

Review

A"In contrast with Mankell, the warm-hearted psychologist of the individual, we find Geeraerts, a cold-blooded surgeon who lays bare the ills of a society. This thriller, so loyal to the genre that the irony and parody are barely perceptible, is relentless. The machinations of Opus Dei and dubious financial manoeuvres are deftly juxtaposed with descriptions of fine restaurants and nids d'amour.A" Tagesspiegel BerlinA"One of Geeraerts literary achievements is that such a shameless and baroque character as Savelkoul ends up attracting your sympathy as you read on. A revealing study of a very dark society.A" Facts Zurich A"Geeraerts exposes the mechanics of corruption, the abuse of power, political cynicism and the excesses triggered by religious delusion. His novels are often at the centre of political scandal.A" ZDF

Product Description

Albert Savelkoul, Public Prosecutor of Antwerp has power, money, an aristocratic wife and a high-maintenance mistress. A wonderful life-until Opus Dei takes a less than benevolent interest in it. So starts a harrowing yet humorous tale of blackmail and murder.
See all Product Description

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 466 KB
  • Print Length: 322 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1904738389
  • Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press (11 Dec 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B004H1T4JQ
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #280,546 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

    •  Would you like to give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Jef Geeraerts
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Jef Geeraerts Page

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

Customer Reviews

5 star
0
3 star
0
2 star
0
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Feanor
Format:Paperback
Arch and knowing books are, thankfully, not a dime a dozen, but Jef Geeraerts's The Public Prosecutor is one such. Geeraerts doesn't have much time for organised religion, I gather from this fable, or for money-grubbing men or women, most of whom end up perishing in some gruesome fashion or the other. The protagonist of this parody of the paranoid thriller genre is the Public Prosecutor of Antwerp, a man who owes his position to his wife's noble family. He leads the usual life of an alpha male - he has a beautiful young mistress; his wealth does not stop him from seeking more; and, of course, he detests his wife, and hardly has any time for his sons. The wife is a deeply religious Catholic who wants one of her sons to enter Opus Dei, the usual villain in books involving religious skullduggery, and to that end is willing to sacrifice everything, including her husband. There are other unsavoury Opus Dei operatives with connections at the highest reaches of power - both financial and administrative - and there are sundry criminals out for revenge. None of the characters has any redeeming qualities but the Prosecutor, harried and hassled, ends up being strangely sympathetic. This is so earnest a book I cannot imagine Geeraerts wasn't grinning ironically all the while he was writing it; good fun.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By AHW Rea
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I really didn't like this book and can't recommend it as a good read.

Essentially, the plot concerns a corrupt public prosecutor in Antwerp. His wife is entangled with Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic religious society. Opus Dei wants her money. They will stop at little to get it, and we meet a large number of shadowy members of the organisation involved in the plot to obtain the money. The prosecutor [Albert] has a mistress of long-standing, who is cheating on him. Albert develops a relationship with a Polish maid in his house. Various people become involved in the story, either tangentially or in more direct roles. Frankly, I gave up caring who was who and what they were doing in the narrative. Only a very few of the characters are remotely sympathetic. The blurb suggests that we might grow to have sympathy for Albert as his predicaments grow: frankly, I've never been happier to see off a character.

May I get one thing off my chest? I have no problem with explicit sex in narratives. I do have a problem when it is not just explicit, but also gratuitous as it is here. Having established that Albert is not of a puritanical disposition, it seems a bit excessive continually to return to accounts of his amorous encounters.

OK, that may just be my taste. Of more concern is the fact that the book is so badly written. From the minor, but irritating reliance upon "inverted commas" which crop up with monotonous regularity, through the clumping dialogue and the sketchy or simply laughable descriptions of places and people, the impression is of a gifted amateur trying his hand at something beyond him. Geeraerts, however, is an established novelist and one might expect more of him. Might this be a translation issue, I wonder?

The plot hinges on the shadowy role of Opus Dei. Here we are firmly in Dan Brown territory. But, and it really pains me to say this, Brown handles it better. Maybe dragging conspiracy/secret society half-truths through both a cultural and a linguistic transposition is too much to permit any degree of subtlety. What we are left with is both simplistic and paranoid [and, yes, I do know whereof I speak].

In summary- a book poorly written, poorly plotted and frankly not worth the effort of picking it up. I'd avoid it if I were you.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:  2 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
great psychological suspense 3 Oct 2009
By Harriet Klausner - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Affluent Albert Savelkoul seems to live a near perfect life as the public prosecutor of Antwerp. He is affluent and influential due in part to the right marriage although his deeply religious wife Baroness Marie-Amandine de Vreux d'Alembourg detests him. His mistress Louise is beautiful and kind though he is considering a maid for that position. Finally he has a secret Swiss bank account concealed even from his spouse in which Albanian drug dealers donate in exchange for magically changing heroin into talc.

His wife arranges with the Opus Dei to destroy Albert. She gives them insider information that they use to blackmail the suddenly beleaguered Albert. The powerful Catholic group demands a cut starting with any inheritance he planned for his offspring. They also easily get into his Zurich account and wipe that out. Opus Dei operatives raise the ante further as they try to break Albert. He prays to God to allow him and his love to safely flee Belgium for Scotland.

The premise behind this great psychological suspense is that a big fish in a small pond can be eaten alive by a bigger fish. Thus corrupt Albert makes the thriller work as he goes from affluence to stomp upon roach rather quickly when someone more powerful sends him back to the masses as another nonentity. Fans will relish this deep character driven tale of corruption and back stabbing as the norm especially for one climbing up the ladder of affluence and influence only to be thrown down by someone higher up. Jef Geeraerts provides a powerful indictment of western civilization circa 1999 as a "Bitter Lemon" whether it is Belgium, Scotland, or the United States.

Harriet Klausner
Darkly Humorous High Jinks in Antwerp 21 Mar 2011
By Feanor - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Arch and knowing books are, thankfully, not a dime a dozen, but Jef Geeraerts's The Public Prosecutor is one such. Geeraerts doesn't have much time for organised religion, I gather from this fable, or for money-grubbing men or women, most of whom end up perishing in some gruesome fashion or the other. The protagonist of this parody of the paranoid thriller genre is the Public Prosecutor of Antwerp, a man who owes his position to his wife's noble family. He leads the usual life of an alpha male - he has a beautiful young mistress; his wealth does not stop him from seeking more; and, of course, he detests his wife, and hardly has any time for his sons. The wife is a deeply religious Catholic who wants one of her sons to enter Opus Dei, the usual villain in books involving religious skullduggery, and to that end is willing to sacrifice everything, including her husband. There are other unsavoury Opus Dei operatives with connections at the highest reaches of power - both financial and administrative - and there are sundry criminals out for revenge. None of the characters has any redeeming qualities but the Prosecutor, harried and hassled, ends up being strangely sympathetic. This is so earnest a book I cannot imagine Geeraerts wasn't grinning ironically all the while he was writing it; good fun.
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject


















i.e., each title must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Privacy Statement Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Delivery Information Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Returns & Exchanges