Trail of the Serpent

by Jan de Hartog

When the colonial Dutch survivors of the Japanese capture of Indonesia in 1941 petition the captain of a World War I salvage ship to rescue them, the captain, a hunchbacked atheist, demands that the priests and nuns among them renounce God

224 pages, Paperback

Published January 23, 1986

About the author

Jan de Hartog (1914 – 2002) was a Dutch playwright, novelist and occasional social critic who moved to the United States in the early 1960s and became a Quaker. From then on he wrote in English.
At the beginning of his career he wrote five detective novels about the adventures of Commissioner Wiebe Poesiat and inspector Gregor Boyarski at the metropolitan harbor police under the pseudonym F.R. Eckmar

Johannes (Jan) de Hartog was een Nederlandse schrijver van romans, toneelstukken en filmscenario's, vooral gekend om zijn romans over de scheepvaart.
In het begin van zijn carrière schreef hij, onder het pseudoniem F.R. Eckmar, ook een vijftal detectieveromans over de avonturen van commissaris Wiebe Poesiat en inspecteur Gregor Boyarski bij de hoofdstedelijke havenpolitie.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book kept me interested the entire time! Really enjoyed it

[Elaine Cougler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short novel about the fall of the island of Borneo and its aftermath of flight by the Dutch colonists from the invading Japanese, this story starts slowly but becomes intriguing in a short time. The dwarfed captain of "The Henny" undergoes somewhat of a metamorphosis during the journey to freedom. He is influenced by a courageous nun and later by her ghost (seemingly). World war II is the time period of this good read.

[Edwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Niet wat ik gewend ben van de man die boeken schreef als 'Hollands Glorie' en 'De Kapitein'

Boek kwam mij over als iets dat snel in elkaar gezet was. Jammer want het had best heel wat kunnen worden met Krasser en 'mannetje'. Hoe eindigt het met de 'achterlijke kinderen' van zuster Ursula?