Description: When Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg 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.
Review Quotes: "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