Praise for Fred Vargas and the Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries "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
"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 "Vargas is, by some distance, the hottest property in contemporary crime fiction." --
The Guardian (London)