Gesucht wird eine Leiche, von der es nicht mehr als ein Zehenknöchelchen gibt, gefunden von Ex-Inspektor Louis Kehlweiler auf einem Baumgitter an der Pariser Place de la Contrescarpe. Dass dieses belanglose Teilchen ihn und seinen jungen Freund, den arbeitslosen, aber vielbeschäftigten Historiker Marc Vandoosler, bald in ein verregnetes bretonisches Hafennest führt und der Schlick eines alten Verbrechens aufrührt, erscheint am Ende ebenso logisch wie Kehlweilers Starrsinn visionär. Aber bis dahin ist noch manches Bier zu trinken im Café de la Halle, wo jeder jeden beobachtet.

Having been relieved of his investigative duties in the Ministry of Justice, Louis Kehlweiler thought he’d keep his hand in by continuing to keep track of things that seem a little off or out of place. Assisting him in keeping his records up to date is Marc Vandoosler, one of those know as the three evangelists. So when Louis finds the bone from a human toe deposited near a park bench by a dog, Louis enlists Marc’s help in identifying the animal in question as he suspects foul play. Their initial investigations lead them to Port-Nicolas, a small seaside village in Brittany, where Louis tries to unmask a potential murderer and the reason why.

As with all Fred Vargas books, it’s the characters that really make the story and this one proves no exception. Although this is classed as a Three Evangelists novel, only two of them are featured to any degree and neither is the central lead. But Louis is another fascinating oddball with his very own peculiarities. The mystery is the device in which we get to explore these characters and is more than adequate for the task. There’s also quite a bit of humour to keep the tone light and to keep the pace of the story move along. As always, Sian Reynolds does a great job with the translation. ( )

Dove può condurre l'ostinazione...

Romanzo della Vargas per lo più centrato sulla figura di Louis Kehlweiler, attento e meticoloso ex-investigatore che si accompagna al suo rospo Bufo e inciampa in coincidenze che si rivelano non esserlo affatto. Ciò che agli altri sfugge o non interessa, viene fermato dall'acutezza mentale di Louis, come un piccolo osso di un piede viene alla luce fermato dalla griglia ai piedi di un albero. Siamo a Parigi. Milioni di persone, milioni di storie. Da dove si inizia? Louis non si perde d'animo e con le sole congetture a tracciare una strada, pian piano gli elementi si incastrano come tessere di un mosaico. E' laborioso e lungo individuare il disegno finale che ne verrà fuori, ma tra un passato che ritorna, fantasmi della Grande Guerra, lotte di potere, amori ingarbugliati, il quadro si compone e il finale è amaro, come sempre, come il dolore di vite spezzate inutilmente.

This is the second of the "three evangelist" novels but only two of the evangelists take part in it, Marc and Mathias. Instead, the main character is Louis (or Ludwig) Kehlweiler, who was booted out of some ministry and goes around investigating things that others wouldn't think anything of and keeping voluminous files of newspaper clippings from all over France; he also has a bevy of others who report on things to him. He is the son of a German soldier and a French woman and has been known all his life, not in a complimentary fashion, as "the German." At the end, his story, and it is a wild one, comes out.

But to get back to the plot, in the course of his just puttering around and noticing things, Louis discovers a toe joint, which turns out to be a woman's. He enlists Marc, who has been helping him file his newspaper clipping, in interviewing dog owners who come to the same enclosure where he found the toe because he has determined that a dog ate the bone and excreted it and the torrential rain washed it clean. Eventually, the trail leads to Brittany, where a cast of characters muddles the investigation. But eventually, of course, Louis discovers the killer, who it turns out has killed before, and a sordid tale it is.

As always, the characters make a Vargas mystery and not the plot, which is engaging but secondary.

This is the second "Three Evangelists" book, although in practice only Marc and Matthieu play any role in this one: Lucien and Vandoosler Sr. have brief walk-on parts, whilst Adamsberg is mentioned but doesn't appear. The central character is someone new: Louis (or Ludwig) Kehlweiler, a former civil servant who has been pushed into early retirement because he is too good at what he calls "déminage" (mine-clearance), i.e. finding buried scandals in the ministry. By chance he spots something suspicious among the dog-waste under a tree on a Paris street, a bone that turns out to be a phalange from a human toe. It has evidently been through a dog's digestive system, but how did it get there?

The trail leads to a village in a remote corner of Brittany where it rains all the time and a small band of indomitable Gauls the locals play pub games, seek answers to life's big questions from a mechanical sculpture, and sell thalassothérapie to gullible visitors. Vargas has fun with the human tendency to build sense out of things even when we know they are random, with the pleasures of getting up late, the philosophy of pinball, pool and billiards, and a lot of other apparently irrelevant things, but underneath it all there's a reasonably solid murder mystery.

Fun, and with some very nice lines here and there, but probably not one of her best. ( )