Because of the Cats(1963)

Nicolas Freeling

Bloemendaal aan Zee, that smugly prosperous little seaside town, has more television sets per capita than anywhere else in Holland. Even its drunks are polite, its houses uniformly tidy and sparkling clean.

But there's something very wrong with the kids. The most popular teenagers have formed a gang that is preying, with increasing viciousness, on nearby Amsterdam -- Inspector Van der Valk's patch. Van der Valk has no love for chilly, yuppified Bloemendaal. But his curiosity is as voracious as his appetite for good food. And while his colleagues just want the attacks stopped, Van der Valk can't help asking what it is about the town that has turned Bloemendaal's children into monsters. NO CATS ARE HARMED IN THIS BOOK.
--back cover