René Appel (b. 1945) started writing crime novels when he was a professor of Dutch as a Second Language at the University of Amsterdam. His first novel, Handicap, a psychological thriller, was published in 1987. Since then, a new Appel book has come out almost every year—to date, more than thirty novels, collections of short stories, and books of essays. A ten-time nominee for the Golden Noose—the prize for the best Dutch-language crime novel of the year—Appel has won this prestigious award twice, for The Third Person (1991) and Senseless Violence (2001). Long admired as one of the top crime writers in The Netherlands, René Appel is known as the grand master of the Dutch novel of psychological suspense.

The Amsterdam Lawyer, René's first book with Genius Book Publishing, is translated from the Dutch by Josh Pachter.