The Chalk Circle Man
The First Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Wildly imaginative.”—The New York Times
“Adamsberg is a terrific creation and his team of misfits a joy to watch in action.”—Peter Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Banks series
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, the sleuth who doesn't do deductive reasoning, will welcome the first in Vargas's inspired crime series (This Night's Foul Work; Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand), originally published in France in 1990. Newly transferred from his home in the Pyrenees to Paris, the 45-year-old Adamsberg arrives with a reputation for solving big cases, though his diffident manner doesn't impress his colleague and foil, Adrien Danglard. A solitary man drawing blue chalk circles at night around stray objects in Paris streets manages to create a media sensation, but Adamsberg senses evil behind the act. When the corpse of a woman is found encircled in chalk, he's proven right. Adamsberg's indirect approach, his ability to sense cruelty and to let solutions percolate to the surface make him one of the more intriguing police detectives in a long time.