Bob Van Laerhoven is an award winning Begian/Flemish author with a similar problem to my own, but whereas I am owned by a single small dog, Bob is owned by three horses. “My three princesses,” writes Bob. “Bruja – criollo – aka The Great Queen – Archimeda – Arabian full bred – aka The Lady – and Trigger – quarter horse – aka The Rascal.” Here, we find him in conversation with wise Archimeda…

“Hiiiiih….Hey boss, a small question, if you please…”

“Archimeda, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t call me boss, you devious female. I’m your two-legged best friend.”

“Yes boss, sure boss….Why do you like to read on my back?”

“Because it makes me sensitive like you are, my beauty. Reading has to be done in a refined mode of the mind. That mindset is natural for horses, not for humans.”

“Okay, got it… But why are you now sitting in reverse position?”

“Because I don’t want to upset your delicate nature, my darling…”

“Oh? Pray, enlighten me, b-“

“Only when you drop the “boss”.”

“Well….Pray, enlighten me, Bobbbb….”

“I’m reading about war, destruction and tragic suffering, my treasure. Mary Borden wrote The Forbidden Zone when she was a nurse in World War One.”

“War?”

“Humans killing humans for incomprehensible reasons, Archimeda.”

“Mmmm….Why you want to read about things that make me shudder?”

“It is research for my new novel, you graceful creature. The Shadow of the Mole has WW1 as a backdrop but its main theme is the exploration of our damaged souls…”

“Souls? Are they edible? Like apples?”

“I don’t think so, sweetie.”

“A shame. They should be.”

“You have a soul too, tender one, and often I think it’s better than mine. But I don’t see you eating it, although you devour a lot of hay, you glutton.”

“Bo….”

“Mmmm?”

“Now that I know what it is, a soul, I think I’ve seen you doing it. But it was the other way around.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen that your soul was eating you…”

“Explain, my beauty.”

“When you wrote the book Baudelaire’s Revenge you were surrounded by a black cloud.”

“You saw that?”

“We horses see things that humans don’t.”

“And what did that black cloud do?”

“It tried to eat your heart and it succeeded partly. Each time when you came in our corral you didn’t see me. You just saw a beast. You were elsewhere. It went on for months. It saddened me very much.”

“I’m so sorry, Archimeda. I…”

“Before you bought me, I was used to being treated harshly. Shouts, whips, bits that cut in my mouth, curses. You were different. You groomed me, you told me over and over again that you loved me. You calmed me down when I was nervous and afraid. You kissed me a thousand times on my nose. And then it stopped.….”

“I apologize, Archimmeke. Baudelaire’s Revenge was such a dark book to write, so hopeless, so violent, so gruesome. And yet, the man I was writing about, the poet Charles Baudelaire, was someone who sought beauty and love and light, just like I do. But for humans, each thing has its opposite and Baudelaire got lost in the darkness. I realize now I did too.”

“Humans are strange beings. I am beauty. I am love. I have no opposite.”

“I know, Archimeda.”

“You know it with what you call a brain. You still have to learn to know it with your heart.” “I’m afraid that when you’re writing The Shadow Of The Mole you will be eaten again, this time completely.”

“You’re an equine philosopher, my treasure. I’m going to dismount now and give you thousand kisses on your nose. I promise you, this time, I will not be eaten.”

“Bobbbbbb….”

“Yes, my darling?”

“I’m glad I can’t read your books.”

“But you can read my heart, my lovely, you can read my heart….”

Bob Van Laerhoven:

website: www.bobvanlaerhoven.be/en

youtube: www.youtube.com/bobvanlaerhoven1

blog: https://bobvanlaerhoven1.com/

Baudelaire’s Revenge

by Bob Van Laerhoven

As the social and political turbulence of the Franco-Prussian War roils the city, workers starve to death while aristocrats seek refuge in orgies and seances. The Parisians are trapped like rats in their beautiful city but a series of gruesome murders captures their fascination and distracts them from the realities of war. The killer leaves lines from the recently deceased Charles Baudelaire s controversial anthology Les Fleurs du Mal on each corpse, written in the poet s exact handwriting. Commissioner Lefevre, a lover of poetry and a veteran of the Algerian war, is on the case, and his investigation is a thrilling, intoxicating journey into the sinister side of human nature, bringing to mind the brooding and tense atmosphere of Patrick Susskind sPerfume. Did Baudelaire rise from the grave? Did he truly die in the first place? The plot dramatically appears to extend as far as the court of the Emperor Napoleon III. A vivid, intelligent, and intense historical crime novel that offers up some shocking revelations about sexual mores in 19th century France, this superb mystery illuminates the shadow life of one of the greatest names in poetry.

Amazon purchase link HERE

Tight, taut and shocking, these stories all have warped love as the source of violence.Belgian/Flemish author, Bob Van Laerhoven, winner of the USA Best Book Award 2014 in the category “Mystery/Suspense” and the Hercule Poirot Prize with his controversial novel, Baudelaire’s Revenge, connects the fate of individuals with profound social changes. Van Laerhoven has been a travel writer in conflict-zones from 1990 until 2003 and echos of his experiences trickle through these confronting and thrilling tales, set in civil war-torn Algeria in the fifties, in a gypsy populated Polish concentration-camp during WWII, in a Peruvian border-town where stealing is a deadly art, in Liberia during the civil war in the nineties, and in Belgian Congo during the bloody uproar in the sixties. Omnia vincit amor—Love conquers all—the saying goes. But not our Dangerous Obsessions