Whether thriller writer Tomas Ross (73) has now mastered writing after dozens of books? 'Sometimes I shudder at my own sentences'

Tomas Ross, also called the godfather of Dutch 'faction', closes with his new thriller The grief of Wilhelmina finishing his trilogy on the Dutch East Indies. ''Readers often say: with you, we never know what is true and what is false. You might find that an objection, but I find it a compliment.''

 

Arnie Springer

Tomas Ross' new thriller, The grief of Wilhelmina, revolves around the attack on Pearl Harbor and a mysterious deal between Queen Wilhelmina and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in which a ship of soldiers is sacrificed for a higher cause. A thrilling thriller about true history and conspiracies, then, the genre in which 73-year-old Ross is a master. Former intelligence officer Arnie Springer is once again one of the main characters.

Unlike many of his peers, who hang their thrillers on one or more fixed protagonists (usually detectives), Ross usually has 'spit enough' of his characters by the end of a book. ''I scrap my main characters right away. But with that Arnie Springer, I suddenly thought: what a nice man. I wanted to make him come back. That's why it became a trilogy, not because I had thought of it beforehand. I am already working on another book, about the notorious murder of the prostitute Blonde Dolly, in 1959 in The Hague. I need an antagonist in it and thought: shall I do Arnie Springer again? That would be quite possible in terms of time, only in terms of atmosphere it doesn't fit so well.''

What did you like about him so much?

,,I think I liked him because he is an autobiographical character. Years ago, I wrote a war trilogy with a main character, Daan Kist, who was completely modelled on my father. He was one of the founders of the Internal Security Service, which is now the AIVD. But a character modelled after myself, I had never done that before. Arnie is slightly older than me, but lives in the house where I used to live, a large villa on Badhuisweg opposite the Kurhaus, which later became a boarding house. And he plays, like I used to, jazz clarinet. A bit of recognisability in the protagonist, which wrote nicely anyway. But I let him go, you know. Yesterday I was brooding and said to my wife: should I let Arnie come back again? She advised me against it.''

Pearl Harbor

What was the substantive reason for The grief of Wilhelmina?

"The attack on Pearl Harbor. The story about that just doesn't add up. The US naval base was attacked on 7 December 1941, while it was already war and everyone was patrolling - the Americans themselves, the British, the Dutch.... How could such an armada of aircraft carriers, four hundred fighter bombers above them, battle cruisers, torpedo boats have sailed across the ocean for a week to one of the Americans' all-important military bases in World War II without being noticed? There is no such thing.

Wilhelmina also had a secretive visit from Churchill. Wilhelmina had a direct line from England to the White House. President Roosevelt, whom the book talks about, wanted to join that war, but most Americans did not. He needed a cause. It is really crazy what happened there. Journalists and historians are not allowed to speculate, but I, as a novelist, can. I checked the theories circulating about it.

What was also very strange: the death of General Spoor. He did not want to give up the Dutch East Indies, while Queen Juliana was in favour of the East Indies gaining independence. Spoor was overworked and had only one kidney, but he was only 49 when he died. He went to dinner in a restaurant, and with a whole group they all ate the same thing, only Spoor and his adjutant got very severe food poisoning. The adjutant narrowly survived, Spoor did not. He was our commander-in-chief - four stars - but no autopsy was done. That's crazy, you know, in a man of that rank. There are no medical records either, or they have disappeared.

A strange figure appears in my book, nicknamed Hercules. He may have been in that restaurant, including in the kitchen. The identity of that Hercules is still not allowed to be revealed, because of state security and the safety of the royal family. After all this time? Very vague. Indian journalist Ricci Scheldwacht emailed me an advertisement of that restaurant, with the owner's name underneath. What turned out: the man went to India in 1949 and was a pharmacy assistant in Java and a poisoner. General Spoor was really a pain in the ass for The Hague. He was very popular with the troops. I think the popular general has been eliminated.''

Conspiracies

As you tell and describe it in the book, it sounds very plausible. Conspiracy theories are often somewhat laughed at, but when I read your book, I think: it is teeming with them.

''My father used to say: it is disastrous that there are so many idiots coming up with conspiracies that are not true. The real conspirators take advantage of that. Hardly anyone believes in conspiracies. But a lot of things do happen that are not true, as, for example, in the murder of Pim Fortuyn, about which I wrote in The sixth of May have written.

On 3 March 1945, there was a bombing of the Bezuidenhout in The Hague, a so-called 'mistake bombing'. The order was to flatten the Hague forest, because V1 rockets were located there. But what happened: they flattened the neighbourhood next door and five hundred people died. How could that be? After all, it was early '45, pilots knew that route by heart by now. The wind was wrong, it was said. Fifty-two bombers all dropping their loads wrong because of the wind? There was no wind at all that day.

The Royal Air Force's official explanation later said: the navigator had the map of The Hague upside down. They were flying 300 metres above The Hague, the weather was beautiful, a spring day. Then you can see the Hague forest just below you - as a pilot, you don't need radar, no map for that. Is it a coincidence that this area was blown up, when there was a very strong communist resistance group there, and both Prince Bernhard and Churchill were against communists? If that was actually done on purpose, that would be rock hard.

Blonde Dolly, about whom my next book is about, worked in a private brothel where high-ranking NSB members also came. From London, in 1944, orders were reportedly given to eliminate the communist resistance boys. Because liberation was imminent. Russia already had Berlin in its hands. Communism was strong and everyone was scared to death of it. This Blonde Dolly had a fortune of about three million when she was killed - a lot of money in those days. Where had she got that from as a prostitute? I think she saw and heard things and blackmailed people in that brothel for high-ups. She was the only whore with an alarm, with a bodyguard, with shutters. It's really bizarre.''

Is it easier to describe plots from the past than from the present?

''Yes, definitely, because more is known. I need facts. I have been working on the assassination of President Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald, spent two weeks in the Netherlands two months before he killed Kennedy. The strange thing about Oswald is that he lived in Russia, he was married to a Russian woman, and at the height of the Cold War he was allowed to enter the United States with a Russian woman just like that. At that time? People were screened to and fro. I wondered: could there have been a Dutch involvement in Kennedy's assassination? But why then? I can't make it up and have no facts. So that story never got out of my fingers.

If I write a book and a chapter is about a historical character, I have to stick to all the facts. So Prince Bernhard cannot meet my hero either, because Arnie Springer is a fictional character. The attack on Pearl Harbour cannot fail, because it took place. I find that the tricky thing about the genre. Besides, I look for it in typically Dutch affairs and plots anyway, but those do. That's why it's often about Prince Bernhard. He was a gentleman villain.''

Prince Bernhard

The ideal character. If he hadn't existed, you would have made him up yourself. How wrong was he really?

"He was wrong, not on an ideological basis, but because he was an opportunist. Why did he say that he had never heard of the Zorreguietas, when Willem-Alexander showed up with Máxima? It has been shown that he stayed with Máxima's grandfather. He denied his SS membership for years, until his membership came to light.

We know that Bernhard passed messages from London to his family in Germany, to his mother and her lover, who worked for the Nazis. In the packs of coffee he sent to Germany, he put notes. We know that before the war he was on the government committee that secretly deliberated what the Netherlands should do if Germany attacked: stay neutral, go with the Germans or with the British? Bernhard always had Nazi sympathies, until '43 or '44, when you could see that the Germans were going to lose. What did he pass on to Germany?

Actor Rijk de Gooijer, who was a friend of mine, interpreted for the Americans and British during World War II. Rijk strongly claimed that he was at the arrest of Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was carrying a pouch of documents, and Rijk claimed it contained a letter from Bernhard. Was that true? Rijk sometimes made things up and was also often drunk. I don't know.''

Bad sentences

You already have dozens of thrillers to your name. Are you at the top of your game by now?

,,Sometimes I wince at my own sentences. Or I get a proof for the third time and think: what a bad sentence, why didn't I or someone else see that before? I have become better at dosing, but that remains the most difficult part. They are complicated books, also for myself. I have to explain a lot in them and do a lot of research. In an earlier book about New Guinea, I had a monkey screaming in forests. Stupid! There are no monkeys on New Guinea.

Then I immediately get a message: nice book, you know, sir, but how did that monkey get there? I had Prince Bernhard get into a Jeep in May '42. So I immediately got an angry reaction: that's not possible, because the Jeep only came in June '42. Or I made him light up a Lucky Strike. But no, he was smoking Chesterfield then. Then I tried so hard on the research and think sodemite-yet.''

Every year a new book is published, sometimes even two. Why still this work drive?

,,After The grief of Wilhelmina I did nothing for a month for the first time in 35 years. I was bored to tears. These days, I do do a little less than I used to, because back then I also wrote screenplays. However, I still have an urge to prove to myself that I can do it. Every time. Every book is like climbing a mountain again. It always starts off nicely, and then I get stuck. Then it starts to dizzying me. What do I do then? Whine and smoke cigarettes. I promised my wife that from now on I will only write one book a year. She has bought a camper van and I have to come along. And I'm not allowed to bring a laptop.''

The grief of Wilhelmina is published by De Bezige Bij, €19.99