["The Inspector"] is a novel about a police inspector that is not a detective story, a novel about international pursuit and intrigue that is not a thriller, and a novel about 1946 that is as contemporary and immediate as the latest headlines about Adolf Eichmann….

[Jan de Hartog] has looked at the world about him and chosen dramatic and even melodramatic events as the proper material for a sober and touching novel of the human condition in that world. (p. 4)

This is not, in the common sense, a suspense story: the tone is subdued, the pursuit (physical and spiritual) runs relaxed at times to permit scenes of quiet charm or subtle sadness. But de Hartog's intense concern for his characters sustains an unflagging pitch of interest. We are involved with Jongman as a complex and many-dimensioned person. (pp. 4, 20)

The lesser personages are not characterized with such depth; but de...