Customer Reviews

This Nights Foul Work

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Commissaire Adamsberg is a wistful protagonist who, while leading his Parisian crime squad, intuitively grasps unrelated clues where others see none. In this installment of the series, he is confronted with the murders of two unrelated toughs which are presumed to be drug related, and, therefore should be handled by the drug squad.

However, the Commissaire holds on to the investigation, amassing clues and insights to move it in directions other than the assumption of drug involvement. Meanwhile, he also has to fight a new recruit who holds a boyhood grudge against his new boss, as well as supernatural sightings of ghosts both in his new home and in a Normandy cemetery. Are these all related? Is he following real clues, or being led down the proverbial primrose path?

Written in droll prose, the novel is excellently translated by Sian Reynolds who captures the language and offbeat comments with accuracy. The plot certainly is offbeat and inclusion of Racine-like poetry is an excellent touch. The crimes described are among the more unusual in this type of mystery and the reader has to keep turning pages to keep up with events and the eccentric characters. Recommended.

I discovered Fred Vargos last year and have read everything that's been published in English. This particular book, like the rest of this series, was excellent! I love the central character since he's unlike any of the detective types in the U.S. or England. I know that I'm going to be surprised by 'who did it' which is a delight since 99.99% of the time I always have figured it out, sometimes in the first 2 chapters which makes the read uneventful. Fred always surprises me and her characters are so unique yet believable. I hope that there is a push to get everything she's done translated asap! (And you gotta love a female named 'Fred.')

People who love Fred Vargas's Chief Inspector Adamsberg mysteries will really enjoy THIS NIGHT'S FOUL WORK. It's wonderfully atmospheric, the characters are complex and believable, and the plot is engrossing and completely unpredictable. I think it's one of the best of the series.

"Stands to reason," wise old men keep saying in this novel. But there's nothing reasonable about the crimes Commissaire Adamsberg is investigating, or the methodical maniac behind them.

Adamsberg is at an interesting point in life. He's just moved into a house that's haunted by a long-dead bloodthirsty nun. His beloved Camille, who has rejected him, is treating him as a mere friend and convenient babysitter for their son. And the new recruit in his office from his native village is nursing a possibly murderous grudge against him.

Meanwhile Adamsberg is encountering crimes that are not what they seem. In Paris, two young men with dubious occupations are found with their throats slit. In Normandy, the grave of a thirty-something virgin is desecrated, and a stag is killed in an unsportsmanlike fashion, with its heart cut out.

As events unfold, Adamsberg is obsessed with minutia and absurdly hypothetical by turns. His wild and wooly mental processes find a match in the elaborate planning and staging of crimes by the killer, whose bizarre purpose is beyond even Adamsberg's imagination.

The eccentric members of Adamsberg's Murder Squad add to the fun. Danglard, the walking encyclopedia, is hitting the bottle harder than ever. Retancourt, the tank-like woman officer who saved Adamsberg's life in a previous book, continues to "channel her energy" in mysterious ways. Kernorkian is afraid of dogs, germs and the dark. The narcoleptic Mercadet, when awake, demonstrates a real genius for figures. And the new recruit versifies compulsively in twelve-syllable Alexandrines.

As always Vargas keeps the reader spellbound throughout an incredibly convoluted plot by the sheer power of her dazzling prose style. In her photo on the back of this book, Vargas looks young enough to produce a lot more Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries. I sincerely hope she does, and soon.

There is no writer out there who does what Fred Vargas does. Her ability to describe the unreasoning and unconscious aspects of the human mind within the constraints of the crime/thriller/mystery genre is unlike any other modern writer. She holds my attention at all points in her tales, weaving contrasting and compelling portraits of not only her hero, Adamsberg, but the other players in her dramas. She leaves me wanting more and more of these wonderful plots and the amazing Adamsberg. She has some formidable fellow authors out there; but, quite frankly, she is in a league of her own.

Finding out that the author was a woman was as much of a surprise as ascertaining who the villain of the novel was. Vargas has a hold on the inner workings of her Commissaire Adamsberg. The book is chock-full of beautifully drawn characters that you come to care for deeply. This is not done at the expense of plot however.

I tend to read a lot of British, Scandinavian and Scottish mysteries. It was fascinating to take a look into this French world, not seen from tourists but residents.

I had intended to only sit with the book for a short time one afternoon and ended up motoring to the end...just HAVING to find resolution.

I will now be searching out more Vargas books.

What I always enjoy about Vargas's Inspector Adamsberg mysteries is the knowledge that I'll finish the current one and cast about for her next.

This Night's Foul Work is no different, and may be one of the better ones she's written so far. The characters are wonderful and she evokes the places of Normandy and Paris so simply, so easily, that it is clear she knows of what she writes.

I suspect you'll finish this book in two nights...at most. Or, if you really like a good detective mystery, in one long night. This Night's Foul Work is just too good to stop.

This is the first of this series featuring a quirky French inspector and his colorful squad of detective that I had come across. I enjoyed it and was willing to suspend my disbelief enough to swallow the preposterous plot.

The squad is headed by the rather morose and dreamy Commissioner Adamsberg who relies on instinct and inspiration rather than the plodding footwork, lengthy interrogations and forensics favored by his illustrious forebear Inspector Maigret. At one crucial point in this story, he sets loose a fat and lazy cat to track down a colleague whom he believes has been abducted and is in mortal danger. The cat travels 38 kilometers across Paris while a police helicopter hovers overhead. Its completely ridiculous -- but fun.

Other characters include a lieutenant who speaks in verse (alexandrines in the style of Racine), a collection of taciturn peasants from Normandy, an archeologist who can tell from digging what kind of spade was used to dig a hole and whether the person digging it was a man or a woman. There's also a priest who has lost his faith and who presides over a 14th century manuscript that contains the secret of eternal life that lies at the center of the plot.

Unlike Maigret, Adamsberg is rather indifferent to Gallic cuisine and fine wine. So one doesn't get the vicarious enjoyment of wonderful meals in a pleasant alcoholic haze.

Instead, one gets an education in ephemera. I learned much from this book including the fact that most mammels have bones in their penises and that some also have bones in their hearts. I learned about the decomposition process and the way hair grows after death. Hair is known as "the quick" because it keeps growing after life has fled, hence the phrase, "the quick and the dead." By the time the book ended, I was caught up in the author's spell, less interested in the identity of the serial killer and how he/she would be caught than in the wealth of minutiae accompanying the story.

FV's reputation rests on writing warm, rich, imaginative, multi-layered thrillers with meandering, sometimes messy plots based mostly in Paris and French regions, or partly abroad, e.g. in Canada. Many plots are rooted in old French folk fears about the plague, ghosts, werewolves, etc. dating back to medieval times. And there is a focus on detail: from book 1 to 9, the hero and his team of 27 detectives, even the office cat, are portrayed and followed in their development. And her books are beautifully written. Almost every page has a few lines of unexpected speech, ideas, thoughts or observations.

This book's chapter 8 is a masterpiece of FV's stupendous writing, when the hero, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg (J-BA), head of a Paris police murder squad and born in the Pyrenees, gently wins the confidence of suspicious villagers in a village bar in the Normandy region where an outrage has occurred: a deer has been shot, but only its heart was removed and cut to pieces. Why?

J-BA faces a multitude of challenges in this book. He has cheaply bought an old house in Paris reputed to be haunted. His long-time muse Camille and their baby son Tom live elsewhere and have to be protected 24/7 since an earlier case. In Paris, two large street hustlers are killed, according to the pathologist by a small woman. A nurse in her 70's, a serial killer of 33 elderly people, detected and arrested by J-BA, has escaped from prison almost a year ago and is a prime suspect of recent crimes. But the situation is made even more dramatic by the appearance of a newcomer in J-BA's squad: Veyrenc hails from a neighboring Pyrenees' valley from J-BA's own. He has carefully wormed his way into J-BA's team with a mission. He wants to get even and destroy J-BA because of a juvenile trauma... The somewhat autistic J-BA typically ignores the newcomer for months, but after they first talk, hostilities begin.

A riveting thriller in which J-BA is shaken to the core, and has to re-focus his staff and his instincts more than once about who is really responsible for old and new killings and other mysteries. Also required reading for the sequel, "An Uncertain Place" in which Veyrenc and J-BA meet again. In Serbia.

The only minus point concerns a few unlikely facts and events to help FV bridge gaps in her narrative. This literary thriller challenges FV's translators more than ever: because under stress, newcomer Veyrenc finds solace in instantly composing and reciting poetry with strict meter and rhyme.

My first, and certainly not my last, Vargas novel.

Commissaire Adamsberg has his hands full with ghosts in his house and prowling a Normandy cemetery. In addition there are murders which appear drug related. The rest of the squad wants to go & give them to the drug squad, but Adamsberg feels homicide & ties clues together where other miss them. Add a young recruit to his team who is bent on revenge from a happening of years back, a couple of slaughtered & mutilated deer & an elusive on/off girlfriend. He has his hands full.

The book is told with some very droll prose from the young recruit added into the mix. There's a lot for Ms. Vargas to develop into a successful plot with an excellent ending. She does it and does it very well.

Taking place in France, it's somewhat like other European novels wherein the author takes a bit to develop characters & parts of the story. When this book takes off, it's very difficult to put down