Episode 117 Bob Van Laerhoven

Bob Van Laerhoven is a full time Belgian/Flemish novelist who published (traditionally) more than 40 books in Holland and Belgium. In Belgium, Bob was a four-time finalist of the ‘Hercule Poirot Prize for Best Mystery Novel of the Year’ with the novels ‘Djinn’, ‘The Finger of God’, ‘Return to Hiroshima’, and ‘The Firehand Files’. In 2007, he became the winner of the Hercule Poirot Prize with ‘Baudelaire's Revenge’, which also won the USA Best Book Award 2014 in the category ‘mystery/suspense’. "Baudelaire's Revenge" is also published in French and in Russian. Bob’s collection of short stories ‘Dangerous Obsessions’, first published in the USA in 2015, was chosen as the ‘best short story collection of 2015’ by the San Diego Book Review. The collection has been translated into Italian, (Brazilian) Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.  ‘Return to Hiroshima’, his second crime novel in English, was published in May 2018 by Crime Wave Press (Hong Kong). The British quality review blog Murder, Mayhem & More has chosen ‘Return to Hiroshima’ as one of the ten best international crime novels of 2018. MMM reviews around 200 novels annually by international authors. Also in 2018, the Anaphora Literary Press published ‘Heart Fever’, his second collection of short stories. ‘Heart Fever’ was one of the five finalists of the American Silver Falchion Award. Bob was the only non-American finalist. The collection has been translated into Italian and Spanish. A German translation is currently in production. To learn more about Bob Van Laerhoven and his work, please visit bobvanlaerhoven.be/en.