The Belgian/Flemish author Bob Van Laerhoven writes cross-over between literature and the suspense novel. He has published more than 35 books in The Netherlands and Belgium, and was a full-time travel writer between 1990-2003, visiting mostly conflict zones (Somalia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Gaza, Liberia, Iraq, Iran, Mozambique, Sudan, Lebanon, Myanmar, to name just a few).
In 2007, Laerhoven won the Hercule Poirot Prize for best suspense novel of the year in The Low Lands with "De wraak van Baudelaire" (Baudelaire's Revenge). The novel has been published in France, Canada, the USA, and Russia. An Italian and German translation are in the making. Baudelaire's Revenge won the 2014 USA Best Book Award in the category Mystery/Suspense. Laerhoven published short stories in Brussels Noir (Akashic Books), Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Conclave, a journal of Character, the British literary magazine for international contemporary writing Wasafiri, and an essay about Mystery Fiction in the non-fiction anthology Stories of Inspiration. Brussels Noir is also published in a French and in a Polish edition. Laerhoven's short story collection Dangerous Obsessions (The Anaphora Literary Press, USA, 2015) was voted "best short story collection of 2015" in The San Diego Book Review. The English translation of his novel "Terug naar Hiroshima"(Return to Hiroshima) was published in March 2018 by The Crime Wave Press (Hong Kong). Heart Fever, a second volume of short stories, was published in January 2018 in the USA by the Anaphora Literary Press. Via Babelcube, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish; and Swedish translations of Dangerous Obsessions have been published. The British quality book blog Murder, Mayhem & More listed Return to Hiroshima as one of the ten best international crime novels of the year. Heart Fever is one of the five finalists of the American literary Prize Silver Falchion Award in the category "short story collections". Van Laerhoven was the only non-American finalist of the Award.
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Shocking short stories with war as a background, set in different countries
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Five stories that shed a piercing light on our most self-destructive impulses.
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