An Uncertain Place - (Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery) by Fred Vargas (Paperback)

About the Book

When Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is called to the scene of a ghastly and highly unusual murder, he thinks it can't have anything to do with the nine pairs of shoes and severed feet discovered outside of London's Highgate Cemetery just a few days earlier. With the help of the murdered man's gifted physician, Adamsberg delves into the victim's disturbed psyche.

Book Synopsis

"Wry humor and offbeat plots blend with a subtly dangerous charm to make Fred Vargas the queen of French crime writers."--Martin Walker, author of the Bruno, Chief of Police Series

"A wildly imaginative series."--The New York Times

From the #1 bestselling French author and four-time winner of the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger Award.

When Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, the chief of police in Paris's seventh arrondissement, is called to the scene of a ghastly and highly unusual murder, he thinks it can't have anything to do with the nine pairs of shoes and severed feet discovered outside of London's Highgate Cemetery just a few days earlier. With the help of the murdered man's gifted physician, Adamsberg delves into the victim's disturbed psyche and unexpectedly finds himself on a path that takes him deep into the haunted past of Eastern Europe, where a centuries-old horror has come to life and is claiming victims far and wide.

Review Quotes

"Vargas writes with the startling imagery and absurdist wit of a latter-day Anouilh, about fey characters who live in a wonderful bohemian world that never was but should have been." --The New York Times Book Review

"Spry, ironic, yet fully engaged with the horror of contemporary reality" --Los Angeles Times

"It's a full, rich and strange plate." --Seattle Times

"[A] high degree of intelligence, sophistication and perversity informs [Vargas'] fiction...I continue to be delighted by the workings of [her] imagination. It's a tangled web she weaves, and a hard one to escape."--Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post

"Few crime stories are as apt to leave a reader wondering so ardently: Who dunnit?...Vargas' characters are like something out of a fairy tale - eternal opposites, ever-renewing archetypes despite their fresh adventures each time. That's why each novel's opening feels new." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Anyone who enjoys kooky characters and intricate detail will happily follow Vargas along." --Entertainment Weekly

"As droll and fascinating as la ville lumière itself." --Kirkus Reviews

"Adamsberg, always an intuitive sleuth rather than a rational one, is the perfect hero for a series where reality is always a moving target." --Booklist

About the Author

Fred Vargas, historian and archaeologist, is a number-one bestselling author in France, Germany and Italy. She is the author of eight novels featuring Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, and has won the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger Award three out of the last five years.