Product details
Biographical note
Fred Vargas was born in Paris in 1957. A historian and archaeologist by profession, she is now a bestselling novelist. Her books have sold over 10 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 45 languages.This latest outing for the offbeat Commissaire Adamsberg is [Vargas'] best
Independent
After decades in which crime fiction in French was dominated by the Belgian author Georges Simenon, it has an indisputable new star in Fred Vargas
- Joan Smith, Sunday Times
Vargas depicts brilliantly a rural community riven with superstition, where class distinctions have existed for centuries
The Times
An early contender for outstanding crime novel of the year
Sunday Times
A glorious mix of myth, quirky observation and gallic humour
Sunday Telegraph
Her novels about the kindly, quixotic Commissaire Adamsberg are unique, presenting us with a France that resembles Simenon’s in its concreteness but with a fantastical, even surreal, twist: werewolves, vampires and, in her latest novel, an army of ghosts on horseback… Her work is like a baked Camembert among the smorgasbord of chilly Scandinavian realism that dominates the foreign crime fiction market here, delicious comfort food for the sophisticated palate
- Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph
There are, it seems, two types of people: those who have discovered the quirky bliss of Fred Vargas's novels and those who don't know a good thing when they see it on the shelf
Independent on Sunday
A celebration of love and camaraderie among the unlikeliest allies
Metro
‘People will die,’ says the panic-stricken woman outside police headquarters.
She refuses to speak to anyone besides Commissaire Adamsberg. Her daughter has seen a vision: ghostly horsemen who target the most nefarious characters in Normandy. Since the middle ages there have been stories of murderers, rapists, those with serious crimes on their conscience, meeting a grisly end following a visitation by the riders.
Soon after the young woman’s vision a notoriously vicious and cruel man disappears. Although the case is far outside his jurisdiction, Adamsberg agrees to investigate the strange happenings in a village terrorised by wild rumours and ancient feuds.
‘People will die,’ says the panic-stricken woman outside police headquarters.
Soon after the young woman’s vision a notoriously vicious and cruel man disappears. Although the case is far outside his jurisdiction, Adamsberg agrees to investigate the strange happenings in a village terrorised by wild rumours and ancient feuds.