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Read Charles Stross' The Nightmare Stacks and it was indeed an entertaining addition to the Laundry Files series. This was kind of a quick go-over to see how the story will unfold, and I'm going to re-read it more slowly and try to pick up the details before I return it probably Wednesday-ish when I run my errands.
Also finished the late Janwillem van de Wetering's Outsider in Amsterdam, the 1st in his long-running Grijpstra & de Gier series starring cops in Amsterdam in the 70s and onwards, which was popular enough in its native country to be adapted into film several times. This was a Soho $1.99 sale title and I gave it a try to see if I wanted to pick up the rest of the series at $3.50 CAD a pop while they were discounted and I could also get the 10x Kobo weekend promo points.
It is pretty much a period piece, showcasing a kind of intersection of Dutch society in the era where the New Age free love hippie stuff* and raised political consciousness hasn't quite evolved into greater social egalitarianism for persons who don't fit into the traditional status quo. Like Finnish author Leena Lehtolainen's Maria Kallio books, originally published in the 1990s and only in recent years becoming available in English translation, these are also kind of a time capsule of 1970s Dutch attitudes towards race, gender, sexual orientation, and the lingering effects of colonialism upon those displaced from the then-recently dismantled Dutch colonies. Mind you, the primary impression one gets of 70s Dutch society is that it's a country full of enthusiastic tax-evaders and wannabe drug dealers.
In a quiet, low-key way, they're actually rather eccentric books. From the Wikipedia article, at least one of the supporting characters throughout the series never gets named. And the criminal pursuit and capture is all done so politely, with people apologizing for having shot each other and damaged the other's property and all parties saying that it was all perfectly understandable that it would happen this way and couldn't be helped and was the best that could be hoped for, under the circumstances.
Anyway, while rather dated and probably somewhat flawed, I found this first one interesting enough that I did pick up the rest, as I'm interested in seeing how the stories and the society depicted within evolve over the decades; if they do, considering that apparently at some point early into the series, the author moved to Maine in the US and stayed there for the rest of his life. Also, I appreciated the explanatory footnotes for a couple of Dutch cultural references that this and the included sample chapter for the 2nd had, since those are always useful in translated works, so bonus points.
* Apparently the author, in addition to having been a reserve cop himself, spent time in a Buddhist monastery and wrote a book (still in print) about his experiences, and there are digressions, almost meditations, into things like music appreciation and actual Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, which becomes a plot point later in the case.
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