Rotterdam anchors the account of a Dutch murder investigation that Carl Mørck brings before his colleagues: the victim, Danish citizen Rasmus Bruhn, was found in a canal in Vriesland, a suburb southwest of the city. The case places Rotterdam in the narrative as a regional reference point for cross-border police work, rather than as the stated site of the discovery itself.

Geographic Setting

The discovery occurred in Vriesland, southwest of Rotterdam. A twelve-year-old schoolboy, Daniel Jippes, found the body in the Meeldijk Canal while riding his bicycle toward a park area. There, the canal passes beneath a bicycle path through a drainpipe. The account locates the crime in the city’s surrounding area, and does not identify Rotterdam itself as the scene.

Connection to the Investigation

At a briefing, Hans Rinus is introduced as the officer in charge of a similar case in a suburb of Rotterdam. Carl Mørck had served as an observer in connection with the Dutch case and is asked to explain what happened. His account supplies the concrete setting: the discovery in Vriesland and the circumstances in which the boy came upon the body.

The Victim and the Case’s Wider Reach

The victim is identified as Rasmus Bruhn, a forty-four-year-old Danish citizen living in the Netherlands, with several prior convictions. In recent years he had also worked as a journalist under the pseudonym Pete Boswell. His identity gives the Rotterdam-area investigation a cross-border dimension, while the briefing links it to the wider work of the Danish investigators.