Pieter Aspe (the pseudonym of Pierre Aspeslag) made his literary debut in 1995 with the novel The Square of Revenge, and became a prolific full-time writer from that moment on. In 2001 he won the Hercule Poirot Prize for Best Flemish Crime Novel for his book Zoenoffer, and in 2010 he won the same award again, this time for his entire body of work, which currently amounts to thirty-seven novels featuring Inspector Pieter Van In, a gruff yet tender-hearted detective with a passion for beer and the city of Bruges, the Venice of the North. Aspe is presenting The Dreyse Incident in Courmayeur; with over 3 million copies sold, translated and published in eight countries, it is a success story in Italy and around the world.