Fred Vargas ... is rapidly asserting herself as one of the most impressive working crime writers
Metro
Stylish prose and strong characters
Financial Times
Irresistibly gripping, powerfully written and quite often frightening
The Times
The fascination of Fred Vargas's books is due as much to her characters as her plots... sit back and enjoy
Sunday Telegraph
If you haven't cottoned on to Vargas's brilliant Adamsberg detective stories, you're missing a treat
Scotland on Sunday
Vargas's latest continues on the humorous and original eccentricity of her work
Sunday Herald
On the outskirts of Paris, two men have been found with their throats cut. In Normandy, two stags have been killed and their hearts cut out. Meanwhile a seventy-five-year-old nurse who has murdered several of her patients has escaped from prison. Is there a connection between the three cases?
In this mystery, Commissaire Adamsberg is pitted against nemeses past and present: Ariane Lagarde, France's foremost pathologist and Adamsberg's enemy since they argued over a case twenty-three years earlier, and Louis Veyrenc, a new recruit with a grudge, who has been assigned the job of protecting the Commissaire's ex-girlfriend. As the different strands of Vargas's compelling story begin to intertwine, events move towards a gripping climax...
Shortlisted for the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger.