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AWARDS
Winner of the Hercule Poirot Prize 2007 for "Baudelaire's
Revenge," which also won the USA Best Book Award 2014 in
the category "mystery/suspense."
"Dangerous Obsessions" was the "best short story collection of 2015" in the San Diego Book Review.
"Heart Fever," the second collection, was a
finalist in the Silver Falchion 2018 Award.
The quality UK book site Murder, Mayhem & More chose
"Return to Hiroshima" as one of the ten best international
crime books of 2018.
"Alejandro's Lie" was the Best Thriller Book
Awards winner in the category "Political Thriller 2021" on
BestThrillers.com.
The novel was a finalist in The American Writings
Awards 2023 and won a silver medal in The Bookfest Awards 2023
"Alejandro's Lie" became first runner-up in the "general fiction" Los Angeles Book Festival 2024 category.
"The Shadow Of The Mole" was a finalist in the Best Thriller Awards 2022, Historical Fiction category, from Best‐
Thrillers.com.
The Historical Fiction Company chose "The Shadow Of The Mole" as the winner in the "Historical Literary" category of the 2022 HFC Book Of The Year contest.
The book won a silver medal in the Reader View "Reviewer's Choice Awards 2022-2023" competition in the
"Historical Fiction" category.
"The Shadow Of The Mole" is a finalist in the "Hemingway 20th-century wartime novels" competition of The Chanticleer International Book Awards (CIBA).
Van Laerhoven explored conflicts worldwide from 1990 to 2003: Somalia, Liberia, Bosnia, Sudan, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Burundi, Mozambique, Kosovo, Lebanon, and Myanmar… His oeuvre appears in French, English, German, Spanish, Swedish, Slovenian, Italian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Amharic.
Reviewed by Bernadette Longu for Readers' Favorite
In Scars of the Heart, Bob Van Laerhoven has taken a most controversial subject and written ten short stories around it. Each story is unique in its own right but the same theme is carried through each one. The author holds the reader’s attention in each story for different reasons. This is not a fast read but the reader will find that after each story they will ponder on the character or characters and how they came to be who they were and why. The author has taken some of the most sordid and sad stories in people’s lives and will have the reader thinking and realizing that there are always two sides to a situation, even if evil and serious atrocities have been committed against the innocent people in each story. The title, Scars of the Heart, is an apt theme in each story.
In Scars of the Heart, the author shows how we take our fears, problems, scars, and failings with us and almost without fail project them onto our children. We leave our children with a form of PTSD that they have no way of leaving behind as adults are prone to talk about the ugly things that happened in their lives rather than the good. Each story has a different tale and lesson to be learned and each title is more intriguing than the last. Bob Van Laerhoven has highlighted the atrocities that were committed during the various wars throughout the ages, how nobody is ever allowed to forget them, and how it affects vulnerable youngsters growing up as they learn the truth--as seen through the eyes of a relative, family friend, or even history--of what happened to their family, village, and country. This is a most interesting anthology and will give readers much food for thought. It is a profound read and I will be sure to reread some of the more intriguing stories because there is so much to learn from them.
