De Zwarte Adem (The Black Breath) is a dutch book series written by Erwin Claes.
The books follow Vigo Morris after he wakes up in the hospital without any memories. There he is told that he is the only survivor of a gruesome multiple murder in the historical museum of Vordersteen.
Things get even worse for Vigo when the police starts suspecting him. The only people who seem to believe him are his friends Karen who is recovering from a depression, and Linus, a nerdy artist. Because of this Vigo and his friends decide to investigate what happened themselves. This leads them to a dangerous complot involving the Sicilain mob, Irish radicals and the knights of Malta.
It consists of the following books:
- Code F242 (2011)
- Het Malta-Complex (2012)
- De Lima Express (2013)
- Het Boze Oog (2014)
The book series contains the following tropes:
- Amnesiac Hero: At the beginning of the series, Vigo wakes up in the hospital with absolutely no memories of who he is or how he ended up at the murder site. He slowly starts regaining some of his memories over the course of the series.
- Disappeared Dad: Karen's father went missing in Peru some time before the start of the series.
- Killing in Self-Defense: Vigo eventually finds out that Anderson killed the other people in the museum and hit Vigo in the head and Vigo then killed Anderson out of self defence.
- Love Triangle: Vigo and Linus both like Karen. She eventually ends up with Linus.
- Missing Mom: Vigo's mom left her family and went to Italy after divorcing his dad.
- The Reveal: In Code F242 we find out that Karen's steptfather is working with the mob and that he was involved in the disappearance of Karen's father.
