The Square of Revenge by Pieter Aspe, translated by Brian Doyle
This novel takes place in Bruges, Belgium, and begins with an unusual crime. When a longstanding jewellery store owned by Ludovic Degroof is robbed, the police and owners are surprised and shocked to find that nothing was actually stolen. Instead, the jewels have been dissolved in jars of aqua regia, an acid. The intruders also left behind a scrap of paper with a strange square drawn on it.
Inspector Van In is in charge of the case, but his superiors start getting involved almost right away, wanting to keep the crime out of the news. He soon finds himself teaming up with a new assistant district attorney, Hannelore Martens, and the two begin looking at the Degroof family more closely.
Notes with this unusual square are found on letters sent to family members, and when one of Degroof's grandchildren is kidnapped and another destructive act is part of the price the kidnappers are demanding, their focus on the patriarch of the family grows more intense.
There has been a lot of planning put into the crimes here, and the trails that Van In and Martens follow as they put together clues aren't easy to follow, sometimes leading to what looks like a dead end.
This is a slow-moving mystery, with the intelligence of the two central figures standing out, and an attraction between them adding to the suspense. This is the first book in a series that looks promising.
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