Good Used, Owners Inscription. The Narrator Of Thomson"s Book Is A Dancer Living In Amsterdam. One Day He Goes Out To Buy Some Cigarettes For His Girlfriend Also A Dancer And Is Kidnapped And Held For A Period Of Time Before Being Released. It Would Be Unfair To Give Away Too Much More. But Suffice It To Say That Each Development Adds An Additional Coordinate To What We Might Call The Novel"s Emotional Geography. Indeed, The Dutch Metropolis Seems To Be A Full Participant In This Intricate Fiction: There Was A Sense In Which The City Had Been Trying To Tell Me Something All Along. You"ll Never Solve This Case. You Might As Well Forget It. But I Had Not Been Listening, Of Course. Look At The Map. It"s All There, In A Way. The Whole Story. At A Time When So Many Writers Are Obsessed With Trauma Particularly Child Abuse And Its Psychological Fallout Thomson Chooses To Explore The Concept Through An Event That Is Both More And Less Sensational.