Books by Fred Vargas

** Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month **The exhilarating new Inspector Adamsberg novel from France's multi-million-copy bestselling crime fiction star 'Adamsberg is one of my favourite detectives...

When two Parisian women are shockingly murdered in their homes, the police suspect young accordionist Clement Vauquer, who was seen outside both of the apartments in question. But what Louis uncovers is anything but straightforward, and he must call on some unconventional friends to help him solve his most complex case yet.

The murder has been disguised as a suicide and a strange symbol is discovered at the scene. Then the symbol is observed near a second victim, who ten years earlier had also taken part in a doomed expedition to Iceland. How are these deaths, and rumours of an Icelandic demon, linked to a secretive local society?

Keeping watch under the windows of the Paris flat belonging to a politician's nephew, ex-cop Louis Kehlweiler catches sight of something odd on the pavement. A small white object, surrounded by the excrement of local dogs. A piece of bone. Human bone, in fact.

Three-times winner of the CWA International Dagger for Crime FictionCommissaire Adamsberg has left Paris for a police conference in London, accompanied by anglophile Commandant Danglard and Estalere, a young sergeant. Both the dead man's son and gardener have motives for murder, but soon another candidate for the killing emerges.

In spite of all this his colleagues are forced to admit that he is a born cop. When strange blue chalk circles start appearing overnight on the pavements of Paris, only Adamsberg takes them - and the increasingly bizarre objects found within them - seriously.

On the outskirts of Paris, two men have been found with their throats cut. It is assumed that this is a drug-related incident of the kind so often uncovered in that area of town. But Adamsberg is convinced that there is more to it. Anxious to keep control of the case, he must call in a favor from the pathologist Ariane Lagarde.

The opera singer Sophia Simeonidis wakes up one morning to discover that a tree has appeared overnight in the garden of her Paris house. Intrigued and unnerved, she turns to her neighbours: Vandoosler, an ex-cop, and three impecunious historians, Mathias, Marc and Lucien - the three evangelists.

'People will die,' says the panic-stricken woman outside police headquarters. Soon after the young woman's vision a notoriously vicious and cruel man disappears. Although the case is far outside his jurisdiction, Adamsberg agrees to investigate the strange happenings in a village terrorised by wild rumours and ancient feuds.

In this frightening and surprising novel, the eccentric, wayward genius of Commissaire Adamsberg is pitted against the deep-rooted mysteries of one Alpine village's history and a very present problem: wolves. Disturbing things have been happening up in the French mountains;

Years before, Adamsberg's own brother had been the principal suspect in a similar case and avoided prison only thanks to Adamsberg's help. History repeats itself when Adamsberg, who is temporarily based in Quebec for a training mission, is accused of having savagely murdered a young woman he had met.