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by Fred Vargas
Paperback Original
The debut mystery in the internationally bestselling Commissaire Adamsberg series—now available for the first time in the United States
Fred Vargas's Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries are a sensation in France, consistently praised for their intelligence, wit, and macabre imagination. This first novel in the series introduces the unorthodox detective Commissaire Adamsberg—one of the most engaging characters in contemporary crime fiction.
When blue chalk circles begin to appear on the pavement in neighborhoods around Paris, 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.
"Later installments ramp up the contrast between Vargas' comic touch and his dark themes, but as a stage-setter, this one is required reading for series devotees." - Booklist
"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." - Publishers Weekly
"As droll and fascinating as la ville lumiere itself." - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about The Chalk Circle Man was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Fred Vargas (a pseudonym of Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau) is a historian, an archaeologist, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist. This is the sixth Commissaire Adamsberg novel to be published in the USA, but actually the first in the series, originally published in France in 1990. There are currently eight books in the series.
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