Purgatory A thriller

In Eekhaut's thrilling sequel to 2018's Absinthe, irascible Belgian Chief Insp. Walter Eekhaut and his feisty current boss, Amsterdam Chief Commissioner Alexandra Dewaal, confront an intensely disturbing scene-a snowy clearing in Belgium's Ardennes Forest where seven people have been chained to stakes and burned alive. Walter and Alexandra's investigation points them to the Society of Fire, a cult whose members believe they must cleanse impure people in flames before the imminent end of the world. Bureaucratic hindrance and personal conflicts hamper the police efforts to close in on the fanatics. The stakes rise when the Society of Fire strikes back by kidnapping a detective's girlfriend. Meanwhile, Baphomet, the head of the cult, plans an atrocity that will incinerate a crowd of thousands in the heart of Amsterdam. Eekhaut expertly ratchets up the tension while providing insights into the cultural differences between the Belgians and the Dutch. Fans of Thomas Harris's Black Sunday will find a lot to like. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The second novel in the acclaimed, best-selling Euro-crime series that began with the Hercule Poirot Award winner, Absinthe. If the world will end in flames, who is stoking the fire? Walter Eekhaut, the veteran chief inspector from the Brussels police force who has a problem with authority, remains in Amsterdam, where he was dispatched to aid the Dutch security service. When his boss, Chief Superintendent Alexandra Dewaal, receives a tip from one of her informants, the two find themselves across the border in his home country, tramping in the Belgian Ardennes on a frigid January day. What they find is macabre and horrific: seven charred human bodies, attached to tall stakes with chains, in an almost perfect circle. From the look of it, these people were burned alive in some sort of ritual. On the wall of a cabin, Eekhaut and Dewaal find the enigmatic message: "This World seems to last Forever. But it is merely the Dream of a Sleeper." Similar events occur elsewhere in Europe as well as Africa, where Eekhaut's new girlfriend has gone on temporary assignment for an international aid agency operating in Somalia. There have long been stories of an apocalyptic religious cult, The Church of Supreme Purification, along with a more shadowy militant offshoot. Are these events tied to them? Is this some sort of worldwide conspiracy to cleanse human society by fire, or is there a more sinister explanation? Excerpted from Purgatory: A Novel by Guido Eekhaut All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.