True crime lovers really want to read this book

The videos of ‘Jiskefet’ may be completely 90’s, but they are still popular and even today's youth know how to find them. The jokes are also quite timeless, if you look at the dry office types they play, the pretentious students, and the Sinterklaas sketch that is labeled controversial every year. If you really have no idea what I'm talking about, you definitely know one of the actors, Michiel Romeijn, as Sinterklaas in ‘Alles is liefde’. Despite all those hilarious roles, there is also a serious side to him, as he turns out to have an obsession with true crime. As soon as there is something to look at on the crime scene of a well-known underworld murder, he can be found at that location.

But what is the story behind the murdered criminal, who were these people in their own familiar environment and with their family?

Because Michiel was always quick to act, he managed to take unique ‘souvenirs’ from the house of, for example, Willem Endstra. He also got hold of family photos, really a glimpse into the lives of these kinds of underworld figures and who they were outside of their criminal activities. In the book ‘Een klap in het donker’, you can read all these stories back: what happened, why, and what kind of person was this man (yes, they are usually men in the Amsterdam underworld). You don't just read the facts you know from the news reports.

You can also snoop around in the lives of those criminals yourself,
and at the locations of the murders.

I just couldn't stop reading; everything I always wanted to know about those crimes is simply gathered in a book, and then you can also view the souvenirs he took with him at his accompanying exhibition ‘Utah Beach’ in Rotterdam. Photos, objects, you feel super close to the true crime stories that are known throughout the Netherlands, but now they come just a little bit closer.