Sur la dalle: Thriller (Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, 12)

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Adamsberg investigates the appearance of strange inscriptions on the doors of a Parisian building: an inverted four and underneath three letters, CLT. Joss, an old sailor, receives letters telling him where the next graffiti will be. And panic and murders invade Paris when it is the plague that seems to have spread. E che dire di Danglard? Di colui che mi ha sbatacchiata per tutto il romanzo tra rabbia e compassione? Worlds that closely resemble the real one, except that beliefs, tales, apparitions, even professions, from the Middle Ages fit in seamlessly.”— The Philadelphia Inquirer If you are interested in trying one of Vargas’ books, I would start with the first Adamsberg novel, The Chalk Circle Man. It’s short, fast-paced, and one of her best (it won an International Dagger award.)

Adamsberg does not think like regular people, much less like a police investigator. He is a dreamy sort. He gets bubbles in his brain which float about after rising from the depths of his mind. The way he figures out he has a relevant clue is one of the mental bubbles pops, and suddenly he sees how a clue fits in along with the fact it is a clue to a case he is working on. With "This Poison Will Remain," Vargas has created a story filled with delightful imagery, a unique plot, and a truly touching ending. For those who like the unusual and quirky, reading Vargas can be addictive. Yet after the Nîmes deaths, more members of the old band succumb to recluse bites, leading the commissaire to uncover the tragedy hidden behind the walls of the orphanage.”

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For those who have read previous books in the series, there is a feeling of coming home. For those who have not, Vargas conveys the sense of the team members and their loyalty, from the very start. And what a quirky team it is, filled with affection and respect, right down to the cat and Mathias, a character from her "The Three Evangelists" series. It's interesting seeing Adamsberg go through the case and the evidence with the team, which adds veracity to the story. The verbal exchanges often make one smile—"It's called Le Curé de Tours, The Priest of Tours." "Thank you,' said Estalère warmly…'Still Balzac didn't bust a gut making up the title, did he?' 'Estalère, one doesn't say of Balzac that "he didn't bust a gut".' Vargas does a brilliant job of handling horrific crimes in a factual, sensitive manner. Her characters are quirky, and the book’s humor reminded me of Louise Penny’s dry, self-deprecating wit. At times I had trouble following the names and places set in France, but that’s mostly my fault (since I’ve never been there!). Adamsberg is remarkable, in his deft maneuvering in tense relationships within his squad and his ability to pull together random strings of evidence into a clear explanation of events. Faber is best known for his novels Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White, but he’s been incubating a different kind of book for years, one about his greatest passion, music. The result is a series of finely tuned observations formed from personal memories, nuggets of neuroscience and interviews with musical luminaries, in which he attempts to explain “what really happens when we hear, and what’s really going on when we listen”. The answer is a combination of biology and biography. Sounds simple enough: Faber’s kaleidoscope-like book explains why it really isn’t. Spider bites can kill. But three elderly men, living in one area, killed by a small reclusive spider seems more than accidental to a member of Inspector Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg's team. As information is gathered, Adamsberg decides to investigate, a decision that causes a rift within his team. Running an unauthorized investigation and possibly losing his best friend and right-hand man is a risk, but seeking justice is worth it. Arts + Culture Enrich your life through stories, interviews, info & tips about the world of French art, theatre, music, film, architecture, design, photography etc – stay informed – what’s on where and when…

Sorry, can’t always control myself when it comes to those characters. Oh, and by the way, I’m the hot babe on the right, in case you were wondering. Nefarious Last Words (NLW™): Quite disappointing this one was. A whole bloody shrimping lot better the next one hopefully will be. Fred Vargas, watching you the crustaceans are. But hey, no pressure and stuff. Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business (Corsair, Oct) by Roxane GayAt the National Museum of Natural History, Adamsberg meets a pensioner who tells him that two of the three octogenarians have known each other since childhood, when they lived in a local orphanage called The Mercy. There, they had belonged to a small group of violent young boys known as the “band of recluses.” Adamsberg faces two obstacles: the third man killed by the same venom was not part of the “band of recluses”, and the amount of spider venom necessary to kill doesn’t add up.

E quella donna che anche nuda sarebbe parsa armata aveva un viso molto interessante, disegnato con un tratto sottile. Ma nonostante labbra impeccabili, un naso fine e dritto, occhi di un azzurro piuttosto dolce, non sarebbe stato in grado di dire se fosse bella, o attraente. Esitava, sospettando che potesse modificare il proprio aspetto a suo piacimento fra il versante dell'armonia o quello della rozzezza, a scelta. Lo stesso per la sua potenza: puramente fisica o psichica? Semplicemente muscolare o nervosa? Retancourt sfuggiva alla descrizione o all'analisi." Under the slab takes Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg to Brittany, between Rennes and Saint-Malo, where a game warden was murdered. And “the Louviec affair” (named after a fictional village in Ille-et-Vilaine) will take on unexpected proportions. Just outside the gates of the baroque Highgate Cemetery a pile of shoes is found. Not so strange in itself, but the shoes contain severed feet. As Scotland Yard's investigation begins, Adamsberg and his colleagues return home and are confronted with a massacre in a suburban home. Adamsberg and Danglard are drawn in to a trail of vampires and vampire-hunters that leads them all the way to Serbia, a place where the old certainties no longer apply.When blue chalk circles begin to appear on the pavement in neighborhoods around Paris, Commissaire Adamsberg is alone in thinking that they are far from amusing. As he studies each new circle and the increasingly bizarre objects they contain – empty beer cans, four trombones, a pigeon’s foot, a doll’s head – he senses the cruelty that lies within whoever is responsible. And when a circle is discovered with decidedly less banal contents – a woman with her throat slashed – Adamsberg knows that this is just the beginning.” Novelist Fred Vargas, creator of Commissioner Adamsberg, is making a return to crime fiction after a six-year hiatus that left fans impatient, the publisher announced on Tuesday. The exhilarating new Inspector Adamsberg novel from France's multi-million-copy bestselling crime fiction star Fred Vargas is the author “of more than fifteen detective novels, translated in 22 countries, adapted for cinema or television”. On television, Jean-Hugues Anglade has lent his features to Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg five times. José Garcia also embodied it once in the cinema.

Infatti è in queste bolle che si annida la quisquiglia che è sfuggita e che nobilita il dubbio, a volte scambiato per accidia, impedendo di comminare la pena definitiva o il verdetto infausto. Lastly, in the essay-length The Young Man (Fitzcarraldo, Sept), translated by Alison L Strayer, the Nobel prize-winning French author Annie Ernaux recounts her affair with a student 30 years her junior when she was in her 50s. Their relationship prompts the author to recall moments from her own youth and to reflect, acutely and without sentimentality, on memory and the passing of time. A woman is found murdered in her bathtub, and the murder has been made to look like a suicide. But a strange symbol found at the crime scene leads the local police to call Commissaire Adamsberg and his team. Reportage + Société Stay informed & try to understand what’s happening in France – News, sport, politics, even the gossip behind it all – Explore problems & paradoxes of today’s cultural & social issues… This Poison Will Remain opens with the mysterious deaths of three elderly men, apparently from recluse spider bites. Detective Adamsberg smells a murder, and he follows his instincts into the heart of a crime decades in the making.

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Much to my utter shame, total embarrassment and unmitigated chagrin (forgive me Adamsberg, for I have sinned), I have to admit that my eyeballs got quite the intensive workout while reading this book. Okay, so this mystery series is not the most realistic one out there, but this was just too OTT, even by Vargas’ usual standards. ⚠️ Watch out, really real spoilers coming right up. Read at your own risk and stuff. I mean, spider venom + the villainously evil orphans + the two sisters being held against their will, raped and prostituted by their father for years + their brother chopping the father's little head off + Danglard's personal link to the case + Froisy’s stalker/peeping Tom + Adamsberg very conveniently being scared shitless by meeting the culprit as a kid + too many other things) = I didn’t exactly enjoy this one as I have all of the others. It was too sad, with awful happenings. Adamsberg, the main character, almost doesn’t solve the case he uncovers either. In fact, he almost loses his job over the mystery because he cannot convince his team that a number of very rare spider bite deaths were actually murder. But despite my occasional horror and sadness, the book is on the whole a wonderfully entertaining read because the main police characters are all so darling. Ci ho scritto una testi universitaria, l'ho letta, tradotta, e ho premiato alcuni dei suoi romanzi (fra i quali l'indimenticabile "Nei boschi eterni") con cinque stelline, adorandoli. Iceland appears to be the pays du jour for many crime writers these days. Even France’s finest can’t resist sending her main protagonist Commisaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg to the remote island of Grimsey for the opening chapter of this novel. The poor guy’s phone falls in a pile of sheep dung and then is trodden upon by a ewe: without malice, of course!