Title: Taking Lives
Author: Michael Pye
Publisher: Vintage Books
Pages: 295

I really loved the movie, that stars, yes there she is again, Angelina Jolie. When I started reading I found that I had to give up the images and story of the movie and just read it as if it is a new story altogether. The book for instance doesn't even contain the part that Angelina plays in the movie. It is also set in Holland and Portugal, while the movie, if I remember correctly, took place in Canada.

This version of the story is quite interesting. It combines art and history of several countries and you actually learn things from the novel, assuming they are correct. The story begins in Florida when a Dutch student named Martin Arkenhout meets a guy, Seth Goodman, and takes his life, literally. He becomes this person. He goes to college, even though he himself still has 1 year of high school left and when it gets too dangerous to be Seth, he kills another. And when it gets to dangerous to be him, he kills another. That's how he gets to live many lives and goes to many interesting places, until he makes the mistake of taking the life of Christopher Hart. Christopher has stolen images from the Libris Principalis that is kept in a Museum in London. John Costa, who works for the museum is sent after Hart to get the images back. This brings him back to his father's country: Portugal.

There he finds out about his own past and his father's past, which isn't as clean and heroic as he always thought. In the mean time his marriage is falling apart and the museum keep pressuring into getting back the images himself, so they don't have to inform the police and avoid a big scandal.

I thought it was an interesting story. The plot seemed a bit over the top, but once you are reading it that thought vanishes. The story is interesting enough to keep you turn the pages. Sometimes, there were part that could have been a bit faster-paced for my taste, but it kept me reading. I thought the art was interesting and it was funny to see actual Dutch words and places in English sentences. Too bad, it took place in Amsterdam, like pretty much all the foreign stories set in The Netherlands. That is getting rather old. They did, however, go to Delft too and my home town, Rotterdam, was mentioned a few times. Also, there were the cliches of drugs and windmills and stuff like that. The Netherlands is much more than that. But I guess those prejudices will never go away.

I give the book a solid 8/10. In my opinion the movie was a bit better, but that's because it featured a strong and independent woman, who was needed to solve this horrible crime. I have a thing for strong and independent women, but I guess that's pretty clear by now. The movie was a bit scarier as well, but I still recommend reading this book.