Girl in the Blue Coat was just published last week and already it's started collecting some buzz. that's not surprising. It's a book with a genuinely twisty plot, memorable characters, and a well-researched and immersive sense of time (1943) and place (Amsterdam).This novel begins like a classic "locked room" mystery, although the mystery isn't how someone was killed in a locked room but how someone escaped from a locked room and for what reason? Monica Hesse's novel is set in 1943 Amsterdam, a place controlled by the Nazis whose will is enforced by the "Green Police" who can stop anyone, anywhere, for any reason.
As the story opens, Hanneke Bakker is riding her bicycle on her delivery rounds when she's stopped by a handsome young Green Policeman. Flirting with him, she manages to fluster him enough that he shoos her away, telling her he doesn't have time for silly little girls like her. But she's not a silly girl; she's a black market operator who sees what she's doing as an act of defiance against the occupation, no matter how small.
