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Book Cover for: An Uncertain Place, Fred Vargas

An Uncertain Place

Fred Vargas

"Wry humor and offbeat plots blend with a subtly dangerous charm to make Fred Vargas the queen of French crime writers."--Martin Walker, author of the Bruno, Chief of Police Series

"A wildly imaginative series."--The New York Times

From the #1 bestselling French author and four-time winner of the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger Award.

When Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, the chief of police in Paris's seventh arrondissement, is called to the scene of a ghastly and highly unusual murder, he thinks it can't have anything to do with the nine pairs of shoes and severed feet discovered outside of London's Highgate Cemetery just a few days earlier. With the help of the murdered man's gifted physician, Adamsberg delves into the victim's disturbed psyche and unexpectedly finds himself on a path that takes him deep into the haunted past of Eastern Europe, where a centuries-old horror has come to life and is claiming victims far and wide.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Penguin Adult Hc/Tr
  • Publish Date: Oct 25th, 2011
  • Pages: 416
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.90in - 5.30in - 1.00in - 0.75lb
  • EAN: 9780143120049
  • Recommended age: 18-UP
  • Categories: Mystery & Detective - Police ProceduralThrillers - SuspenseHorror - General

About the Author

Fred Vargas, historian and archaeologist, is a number-one bestselling author in France, Germany and Italy. She is the author of eight novels featuring Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, and has won the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger Award three out of the last five years.

More books by Fred Vargas

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Book Cover for: Seeking Whom He May Devour, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: This Night's Foul Work, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: A Climate of Fear, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: The Chalk Circle Man, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: The Ghost Riders of Ordebec, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: The Accordionist: Volume 3, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: Dog Will Have His Day, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: This Poison Will Remain, Fred Vargas
Book Cover for: The Accordionist, Fred Vargas

Praise for this book

"Vargas writes with the startling imagery and absurdist wit of a latter-day Anouilh, about fey characters who live in a wonderful bohemian world that never was but should have been." --The New York Times Book Review

"Spry, ironic, yet fully engaged with the horror of contemporary reality" --Los Angeles Times

"It's a full, rich and strange plate." --Seattle Times

"[A] high degree of intelligence, sophistication and perversity informs [Vargas'] fiction...I continue to be delighted by the workings of [her] imagination. It's a tangled web she weaves, and a hard one to escape."--Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post

"Few crime stories are as apt to leave a reader wondering so ardently: Who dunnit?...Vargas' characters are like something out of a fairy tale - eternal opposites, ever-renewing archetypes despite their fresh adventures each time. That's why each novel's opening feels new." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Anyone who enjoys kooky characters and intricate detail will happily follow Vargas along." --Entertainment Weekly

"As droll and fascinating as la ville lumière itself." --Kirkus Reviews

"Adamsberg, always an intuitive sleuth rather than a rational one, is the perfect hero for a series where reality is always a moving target." --Booklist