On the outskirts of Paris, two men have been found with their throats cut. It is assumed that this is a drug-related incident of the kind so often uncovered in that area of town. But Adamsberg is convinced that there is more to it. Anxious to keep control of the case, he must call in a favour from the pathologist Ariane Lagarde, someone he had come up against twenty-three years previously. The trail also leads Adamsberg to a cemetery, where a grave has been disturbed with no apparent motive. Could this be the work of the elderly nurse - a serial killer caught by Adamsberg two years ago and recently escaped from prison? Meanwhile a new lieutenant has been assigned to the team. There is something disquieting about him, not least when it emerges that he is from a neighbouring village in the Pyrenees, known for its feuds with Adamsberg's own childhood home. "This Night's Foul Work" is another riveting case for that most engaging of contemporary detectives, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, and another triumph from the redoubtable Fred Vargas.
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Review
'Vargas's latest continues on the humorous and original eccentricity of her work', -- The Herald
`The fascination of Fred Vargas's books is due as much to her characters as her plots... sit back and enjoy'.
-- Sunday Telegraph
`a splendid translation by Sian Reynolds...excellent!' -- Tangledweb.co.uk
`stylish prose and strong characters' -- Financial Times
`this is fascinating and infuriating in equal measure' -- Gaurdian
'Her [writing has] been enthralling readers for over a decade'
-- Sunday Telegraph
`If you haven't cottoned on to Vargas's brilliant Adamsberg detective stories, you're missing a treat'.
-- Scotland on Sunday
`The book progresses at a leisurely pace but it holds the interest'
-- The Irish Times Weekend, Vincent Banville
`The fascination of Fred Vargas's books is due as much to her characters as her plots... sit back and enjoy'.
-- Sunday Telegraph
`a splendid translation by Sian Reynolds...excellent!' -- Tangledweb.co.uk
`stylish prose and strong characters' -- Financial Times
`this is fascinating and infuriating in equal measure' -- Gaurdian
'Her [writing has] been enthralling readers for over a decade'
-- Sunday Telegraph
`If you haven't cottoned on to Vargas's brilliant Adamsberg detective stories, you're missing a treat'.
-- Scotland on Sunday
`The book progresses at a leisurely pace but it holds the interest'
-- The Irish Times Weekend, Vincent Banville
Book Description
Another riveting case for that most engaging of contemporary detectives, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, and another triumph from Fred Vargas, twice winner of the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
By RachelWalker
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
When Commissaire Adamsberg moves into his new house he is promptly informed by a neighbour that it is haunted by the ghost of the Silent Sister, a homicidal nun slain by a vengeful son. Adamsberg, being Adamsberg, accepts the news with nary a shiver. He has other matters on his mind. Two men have killed on the outskirts of Paris, their throats cut. The drug squad are trying to wrest the cases from him, but Adamsberg is determined to keep hold of them, adamant that the killings are not about drugs, his seeming only reason the mysterious soil found under the fingernails of both victims. And, of course, his intuition. On top of this, Adamsberg has to work with a new female pathologist with whom he had a run-in years previously, and with a new recruit to the squad, the mysterious Veyrenc, who has a tendency to speak in impromptu verse (from which the novel's title springs), and has a dark link with Adamsberg's own past also.
Then, Adamsberg has cause to visit a remote village in nearby Normandy, and hears the news that a stag has been found in local woodland, slain seemingly for no reason, certainly for no hunting trophy, with its heart torn out and left beside the body. It is only when Adamsberg hears about the death of a second stag that he has the flash of inspiration that jolts the puzzling investigation into action.
Of all European crime-writers, Fred Vargas is my favourite. Others may be brilliant, but Vargas is utterly unique, and that is the reason I hold her in such esteem. Nobody translated into English writes crime novels the way she does, with the humour, the quirkiness, the complete disregard for rationality (even though things often do turn out in a mostly rational manner).... Read more ›
Then, Adamsberg has cause to visit a remote village in nearby Normandy, and hears the news that a stag has been found in local woodland, slain seemingly for no reason, certainly for no hunting trophy, with its heart torn out and left beside the body. It is only when Adamsberg hears about the death of a second stag that he has the flash of inspiration that jolts the puzzling investigation into action.
Of all European crime-writers, Fred Vargas is my favourite. Others may be brilliant, but Vargas is utterly unique, and that is the reason I hold her in such esteem. Nobody translated into English writes crime novels the way she does, with the humour, the quirkiness, the complete disregard for rationality (even though things often do turn out in a mostly rational manner).... Read more ›
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a joy to read, not just for the twists and interweavings of various plots but because of the richness of all the characters, who are often quirky but always believable. Not only is every person deftly and knowingly portrayed but their relations with animals too. A very thoughtful book. Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By M. V. Clarke
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback
Fred Vargas' novels featuring Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg are utterly brilliant, but hard to review, as her plots and characters are so outlandish as to seem ridiculous when reported second hand. Consider just a few examples from this novel: the establishment of connections between the deaths of two young unemployed men in Paris, the slaughter of stags in rural France, a recipe for a mythical medieval potion, a cat that walks 38km tracked by the police, and intimate knowledge of the anatomy of stags, cats and pigs. Implausible? Certainly. Craze? Quite probably. Brilliant? Absolutely. These are novels that are dark, mysterious, witty and highly engaging. Adamsberg and his colleagues are fascinating characters and their interaction, physical, mental and philosophical is one of the main highlights of the novel. Here, we learn more of Adamsberg's childhood, through his connection with a new recruit to the team. The writing is compelling; the plot marches on with many turns and twists, yet there are still wonderful philosophical asides and fabulous vignettes about minor characters. Highly recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By GlynLuke
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
For an eloquent rundown of the basic plot of this literally marvellous novel, I gladly direct you to Rachel Walker`s lead review on this page. I endorse all she says about this treasurable author and her creation.
Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is one of the most original and likeable detectives since Sherlock Holmes himself. Vargas hasn`t done the gimmicky, and now all too predictable, thing of giving her hero a distinctive hobby or character flaw - opera or jazz, for example, or a drink problem - but has taken the more subversive step of actually giving him a character. And what a character! Adamsberg is fascinatingly complex, with a dreamy, poetic turn of mind, more than open to the apparently inexplicable - indeed, seeming to embrace it - and complemented in this book by a real poet, his possible nemesis, the verse-spinning fellow officer Veyrenc (names are evocative in Vargas, of character and of region). But Adamsberg also can be ruthlessly tough or pragmatic when called for. He is a bit of a loner, with an instinctive, rarely vindictive, zen-like way of dealing with recalcitrant or boorish colleagues, telling one officer, who has the blithe surname Noel, to go down to the Seine and look at the seagulls for however long it takes for him to cool off.
Then there is the fluffy yet vital matter of Snowball, the office cat...
There are so many twists in the plot, especially later on when the chase hots up, that a genuine sense of mystery is conjured up, and the book becomes a real thriller. It has to be said that the whole thing might have been trimmed by a chapter or two round about the halfway mark, where matters get a little bogged down in Normandy, among the admittedly delightful Greek chorus of local barflies, but that`s a small quibble.... Read more ›
Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is one of the most original and likeable detectives since Sherlock Holmes himself. Vargas hasn`t done the gimmicky, and now all too predictable, thing of giving her hero a distinctive hobby or character flaw - opera or jazz, for example, or a drink problem - but has taken the more subversive step of actually giving him a character. And what a character! Adamsberg is fascinatingly complex, with a dreamy, poetic turn of mind, more than open to the apparently inexplicable - indeed, seeming to embrace it - and complemented in this book by a real poet, his possible nemesis, the verse-spinning fellow officer Veyrenc (names are evocative in Vargas, of character and of region). But Adamsberg also can be ruthlessly tough or pragmatic when called for. He is a bit of a loner, with an instinctive, rarely vindictive, zen-like way of dealing with recalcitrant or boorish colleagues, telling one officer, who has the blithe surname Noel, to go down to the Seine and look at the seagulls for however long it takes for him to cool off.
Then there is the fluffy yet vital matter of Snowball, the office cat...
There are so many twists in the plot, especially later on when the chase hots up, that a genuine sense of mystery is conjured up, and the book becomes a real thriller. It has to be said that the whole thing might have been trimmed by a chapter or two round about the halfway mark, where matters get a little bogged down in Normandy, among the admittedly delightful Greek chorus of local barflies, but that`s a small quibble.... Read more ›
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Like most of the Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries, Fred Vargas has here turned Paris and Normandy into places of mystery populated by highly original and eccentric beings-both good and evil. I read this book in three sittings (and lost some sleep for it) because I couldn't put the book down. Vargas not only creates a suspenseful mystery but like the best genre writers tells the story of a culture, even going back to her specialty, medieval archeology, for inspiration. Adamsberg is surrounded here by his usual, very odd group of investigators. Even the obvious dei-ex-machine that she uses from time to time to move the plot forward don't irritate because the characters and the energy of the plot keep you always going forward. Only one critique; there a number of typos in the book that become irritating after a point. I hope the publisher fixes this in the next printing.
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4.6 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another great read
I recently returned to read Vargas and this was the third I read in a month. The story is well paced and engaging
Published 1 month ago by Oygen
4.0 out of 5 stars
this nights foul work
i read it but slowly,i just couldn't engage in it.Not the books fault,it just wasn't my sort of tale .but it was okay.It wasn't quite as the blurb said.
Published 2 months ago by lesley
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like a rich Gallic dish - savour and enjoy
I'm finding that a need to ration my reading of the Fred Vargas oeuvre as I could just lose myself and devour all the novels in one. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Plucked Highbrow
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unique is such an overused word, yet it is the one that best applies...
First Sentence: By fixing his curtain to one side with a clothes-peg, Lucio could better observe the new neighbour at his leisure
Insp. Read more
Insp. Read more
Published 6 months ago by L. J. Roberts
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant literary thriller
FV's reputation rests on writing rich, warm, imaginative, multi-layered thrillers with meandering, sometimes messy plots based mostly in Paris and wider France, sometimes partly... Read more
Published 22 months ago by P. A. Doornbos
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unbelieveably Good
It's really criminal - how does Fred Vargas get away with it. One of the most far fetched examples of crime fiction you'll ever read, stretching the reader's credulity to breaking... Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2010 by Huck Flynn
4.0 out of 5 stars
fred vargas magic books
Fred Vargas' books are original and unconventional. The language is refined (and this still transpires in translation) and Adamsberg is a police investigator with a twist. Read more
Published on 11 Jun 2009 by G Saibene
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent
This was a treat.
This is the second of Vargas' books I have read, the first being The Three Evangelists, which I did not like at all, finding it contrived and... Read more
This is the second of Vargas' books I have read, the first being The Three Evangelists, which I did not like at all, finding it contrived and... Read more
Published on 24 April 2009 by S. Hill
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just a great book
Quirky Chief Inspector Adamsberg is a fascinating character, he can figure out who's responsible for murders by taking a walk and thinking. Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2009 by Susie
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