Albert Savelkoul, the public prosecutor of Antwerp, has power, money, an aristocratic wife, and a high-maintenance mistress. A wonderful life—until Opus Dei takes a less than benevolent interest in it. In the course of this subversive psychological thriller, the shameless, slippery Albert becomes an almost-lovable, desperate victim of a power structure controlled by effete aristocrats, a corrupt judiciary, and ultra-right fanatics of the Catholic church. Jef Geeraerts , born in 1930 in Antwerp, was much admired by Henry Miller and is Belgium's best-known author after Georges Simenon. He was educated in Jesuit schools and spent time as a colonial administrator and army officer in the Belgian Congo. He gained international acclaim with his Gangrene Cycle , four novels based on his experience in the Congo. Since then he has focused on crime and noir novels, of which The Public Prosecutor is the first to be published in English.