Judas

June 25, 2018
In an exhaustive account, Holleeder—the sister of Dutch crime boss Willem “The Nose” Holleeder—reveals her role in the investigation that put her brother behind bars. The youngest of four, Holleeder outlines how childhood abuse led to Willem’s cruelty, writing that she and her siblings were “all prisoners of my father’s madness.” In 1983, when Holleeder was in her late teens, Willem and his friend Cor van Hout kidnapped Freddy Heineken, CEO of Heineken Brewing, and ransomed him. Both Willem and Cor were sent to prison for the crime, and the high-profile ordeal embroiled the entire Holleeder family—especially Holleeder’s older sister, Sonja, who had a baby with Cor and later married him. Holleeder writes, “In the court of public opinion, we’d all become criminals.” After their release from prison in 1992, Willem and Cor went on to oversee an empire of corruption, with Holleeder serving as a confidante to both men. Years later, when Willem ordered the murder of Cor and threatened to kill Sonja, Holleeder turned on her brother. Holleeder’s detailed transcripts of secretly taped conversations with Willem add an element of intrigue, as does the afterword in which Holleeder addresses her brother directly, writing, “Wim, I still love you,” even as he attempts to coordinate her murder from his prison cell to prevent her from testifying against him. Written while awaiting her brother’s trial, Holleeder’s engrossing story reads like the last will and testament of a dead woman walking.

Starred review from July 1, 2018
A sister's incriminating memoir exposing her abusive upbringing and a brother's felonious misdeeds.Former Dutch criminal lawyer Holleeder, who wrote her unsparing memoir in complete secrecy, retraces the history behind the notoriously ruthless past of her gangster kingpin brother Willem (aka Wim). She compellingly recounts the first coldblooded attempt on her brother-in-law Cor van Hout's life, then flashes back through a miserably dysfunctional childhood with three other siblings, all tormented by an abusive "megalomaniac" father in a brutish household where "crying was forbidden." Despite her father's tyrannical rule, Wim emerged as the greatest source of familial horror as the family became "worn out by the terror that had passed from father to son." Wim was implicated alongside van Hout in the 1983 kidnapping of Freddy Heineken, and both served lengthy jail sentences. But Wim's reign of crime was just beginning. Fresh out of prison, unrepentant, "cold and heartless," Wim demandingly insinuated himself into Holleeder's and her sister Sonja's personal lives, upending them both. In a brisk and vividly descriptive narrative, the author spares no detail as she chronicles the fearful years following an attempt on van Hout's life, noting that subsequent attacks were sure to follow. A third assassination attempt mutilated van Hout in public as Wim also deployed a string of extortion plots and contract killings across Amsterdam. Legal proceedings and jail sentences followed, while a frustrated Holleeder kept seeing her brother released to continue his reign of Mafia-style crime. Processing feelings of guilt and betrayal while clearly risking her life, the author began cooperating with the Justice Department. She testified against Wim and then visited him in prison wearing a recording device to pick up his confession to orchestrating van Hout's murder. Currently in hiding as the case proceeds, Holleeder has written a harrowing, courageous account of murder and family loyalty while sacrificing her career and her identity in the process.A riveting, sensational, unforgettable autobiography.

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