Seeking Whom He May Devour: Chief Inspector Adamsberg Investigates (Chief Inspector Adamsberg Mysteries) [Paperback]

Fred Vargas (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 7, 2006 | Series: Chief Inspector Adamsberg Mysteries

A small mountain community in the French Alps is roused to terror when they awaken each morning to find yet another of their sheep with its throat torn out. One of the villagers thinks it might be a werewolf, and when she's found killed in the same manner, people begin to wonder if she might have been right. Suspicion falls on Massart, a loner living on the edge of town.

The murdered woman's adopted son, one of her shepherds, and her new friend Camille decide to pursue Massart, who has conveniently disappeared. Their ineptness for the task soon becomes painfully obvious, and they summon Commissaire Adamsberg from the city to bring his exceptional powers of intuition to bear on layer upon layer of buried hatred and secrets.

France's queen of crime writing pits the maverick genius of Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg against ancient, primal fears in a novel that "establishes Vargas as one of the most unusual voices in European crime fiction" (The Sunday Times [London]).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Admirers of quirky, atmospheric whodunits will revel in Vargas's creative second mystery featuring Chief Insp. Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg (after 2005's Have Mercy on Us All). A series of savage attacks on sheep leaves the countryside near the French Alps gripped in superstitious fear, as locals suspect that an unnatural creature resembling the legendary Beast of Gévaudan is responsible. The inspector, keeping a low profile to protect himself from a would-be assassin, is drawn into the mystery after the killer turns to human prey, starting with a woman who has suggested that a werewolf was at large. While the abundance of fair-play clues (and the absence of a large pool of suspects) will enable most experienced genre readers to anticipate the solution, the unusual cast of characters and off-beat humor should help Vargas win new fans. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The second Chief Inspector Adamsberg mystery to appear in the U.S. draws on the same mix of cozy characters and dark mystery that drove last year's Have Mercy on Us All. The focus this time is divided among Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, the Maigret-like chief inspector with the French police nationale, and his former lover, Camille, who left Adamsberg at the end of the previous novel and is now living in a small village in the Alps. Trouble starts when it appears that a very large wolf is attacking sheep; then a woman is also killed, and rumors about werewolves begin to spread. Camille and two of the dead woman's friends are convinced the culprit is a man, not a wolf, and set off to trap him. Reluctantly, Camille agrees to call Adamsberg for help, and this merry band of eccentrics careens through the French Alps, their circuitous route suggesting Adamsberg's inimitable investigative technique: "an unending kaleidoscope of hunches and surmises that inexplicably gave rise to undeniably first-rate results." This is one of those rare series that will please both cozy fans and hard-boiled types. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Original edition (November 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074328402X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743284028
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #144,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Fred Vargas was born in Paris in 1957. As well as being a best-selling author in France, she is an historian and archaeologist.

She worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which she joined in 1988. She later joined the Institut Pasteur, as a eukaryotic archaeologist.

She mostly writes police thrillers (policiers). They take place in Paris and feature the adventures of Chief Inspector Adamsberg and his team. Her interest in the Middle Ages is manifest in many of her novels, especially through the person of Marc Vandoosler, a young specialist in the period. Seeking Whom He May Devour was shortlisted by the British Crime Writers' Association for the last Gold Dagger award for best crime novel of the year, and the following year The Three Evangelists won the inaugural Duncan Lawrie International Dagger. She also won the award for the second year-running with Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Quirky and Enjoyable Mystery December 20, 2008

By Lucinda Surber

Format:Paperback

Seeking Whom He May Devour (French 1999, English 2004) is set in the French Alps. The villagers at first believe a rogue wolf is responsible for some sheep savagings, but when a woman is killed in the same manner, rumors of a werewolf begin to circulate. Soliman, the woman's young adopted son, Watchee, her ancient head shepherd, and Camille, a young musician recruited to drive the sheep lorry, head out in pursuit of a loner who disappears immediately after the murder. When the trio realize they are in over their heads, Camille contacts her old friend Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg for assistance. The solution of the mystery is clever and unexpected, but the true charm of this book is the eccentric road trip which brings together four vivid and unique personalities: Soliman creates fables to explain reality, Camille reads The A to Z of Tools for Trade and Craft for relaxation, Watchee lives and breathes sheep, and Adamsberg floats in a cloud of intuition, waiting for the facts to settle into an understandable pattern.
http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/V_Authors/Vargas_Fred.html

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic French police procedural November 6, 2006

By Harriet Klausner #1 HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

In the Southern Alps-Maritimes section of France, four sheep are killed at Ventebrune; nine at Pierrefort. The locals insist it is the brutal work of a feral pack of wolves led by a gigantic beast like none ever seen before. They believe this beast will turn to devouring humans soon.

At Les Ecart five sheep belonging to Suzanne Rosselin are killed and three others badly wounded. Canadian Lawrence Johnstone works with wolves at the Mercantour National Park; he investigates the sheep killings and knows Suzanne through his live-in lover Camille. Suzanne accuses hermit-like Monsieur Massart of being a werewolf, but she dies when the giant beast attacks her. Johnstone thinks Suzanne was close to the truth, but Massart is not a supernatural creature, but has trained a wolf to do his killings. The local police still believe a large wolf is the culprit while everyone else concurs with the late Suzanne's theory of a werewolf on the prowl. As other people die, Commisaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg begins his inquiry though he is unhappy that his former lover Camille is here with the Canadian. He scans the police reports until he finds a clue that makes him believe he knows exactly what is happening.

SEEKING WHOM HE MAY DEVOUR is a fantastic French police procedural starring an intelligent eccentric commissaire and a delightful support cast though support is a loose term in this superior thriller as Jean-Baptiste enters the fray later than usual for a hero. That will not matter as readers will join the locals debating who or what is the killer, wolves, werewolf, or human predator. Fred Vargas provides a tense gripping tale that readers will fully appreciate from start to finish.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Join Adamsberg on the hunt for a werewolf in the French Alps March 10, 2011

By Cathy G. Cole TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

First Line: On Tuesday, four sheep were killed at Ventebrune in the French Alps.

A small mountain village in the French Alps awakens each morning to the grisly sight of yet more sheep with their throats torn out. A local insists that it's the work of a werewolf, and when she is found killed in the same manner, people begin to wonder if she was right.

Soon an unlikely little group forms of the murdered woman's son, one of her shepherds, and her friend Camille. They've decided that a local eccentric named Massart is the werewolf, and since he's nowhere to be seen, they're going to find his trail and catch him. On their comedy-of-errors road trip, it doesn't take them long to realize that they just don't have what it takes to apprehend a werewolf, and Camille summons Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg to help them. Adamsberg finds that there are many layers of buried secrets for his intuition to unravel.

Adamsberg has been compared to Maigret, and I can't help but chuckle at his choice of venue for deep thinking:

"The Waters of Liffey provided a first-rate solution to his dilemma. The only people in the bar were noisy, boozy Irishmen speaking what was for Adamsberg a completely hermetic tongue. He thought he must be one of the last people left on the planet to know not a single word of English. Such old-fashioned ignorance allowed him to fit happily into the Liffey, where he could enjoy the stream of life without being in any way inconvenienced by it. In this precious hidey-hole Adamsberg spent many an hour dreaming away, peacefully waiting for ideas to rise to the surface if his mind."

The stars of Seeking Whom He May Devour are, without doubt, the wonderful cast of characters and the eerie, creepy atmosphere high in the mountains with few people around. Vargas came close a time or two to getting me to believe in werewolves.

As much as I enjoyed the characters and the atmospheric setting, I did find the plot to be a bit of a letdown. When one of the characters was described, I knew that person was the killer immediately. If I hadn't known this so quickly, I think Vargas would have had the hair standing on the back of my neck. I missed that element of suspense in what was otherwise a very good book.

I happened to read this book in the series out of order, skipping from the first book to the third. Vargas provided just enough backstory to keep me grounded without bogging down the plot.