Dutch police arrive at Martin's house just as he's thinking of going to bed.

He's taken to Amsterdam's central police station, where Inspector Van der Valk breaks the news.

Martin is chief suspect in the murder of his seductive ex-lover, Elsa de Charmoy...

Nicholas Freeling's crime thriller read by David Troughton.

Abridged in three parts by Lauris Morgan-Griffiths.

Piet Van der Valk is the much-copied prototype detective, 'a cranky, gentle, bumbling, brilliant, non-conformist student of human behaviour whose primary concern is why rather than how crimes are committed'.

Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery

First broadcast on BBC 7 in March 2006. Show less