Leon de Winter's great novel is true world theatre, where the threads are pulled not just by made-up protagonists, but those from real life too. A dead filmmaker – Theo van Gogh – on probation in heaven, and his imprisoned murderer down on earth. A shady Jewish businessman and drug dealer and a black Franciscan priest who has bequeathed his heart to him. A writer called Leon de Winter, who, having been left by his wife, seeks comfort in writing a novel about his favourite enemy, van Gogh, and also with the beautiful Sonja Verstraete (although she is, admittedly, in love with the man she has been running away from for years). And a group of young radicalised Moroccans. They stage a series of violent crimes and plunge Amsterdam into a state of emergency. Ingenuity is called-for; either criminal or metaphysical synergies are needed in order to regain control. Or both.