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Loading... El hombre del revés. Un caso del comisario Adamsberg (original 1999; edition 2011)by Fred Vargas (Author), Anne-Helene Suárez Girard (Translator)
Work InformationSeeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas (1999)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. There are people born without hair on the outside of their bodies; if you slit open their skin from throat to groin, you may find hair instead on the inside of the skin. This is the mark of a werewolf, or so the people of the remote French Alps believe. Unfortunately, much like the various tests to prove a woman is a witch, either way the suspect is dead. So when a rather odd man, one who keeps to himself and who does not have body hair, disappears at the same time that livestock and people begin to be slaughtered, the old rumors re-emerge in this region of the French Alps where the incidents are occurring in a straight line seemingly heading to a purposeful destination. Two workers, one elderly, one mentally challenged, had become family to a woman farm owner apparently slaughtered by the beast. They borrow a farm truck turned camper to follow the trail. They convince a young woman to be their driver along the narrow, twisty Alp roads. Eventually, the case catches the eye of Chief Inspector Adamsberg, who believes there is more to the tale than a werewolf. And it doesn’t hurt that the driver of the old truck is a former lover. I enjoyed this quirky mystery with the hint of the supernatural beast as the suspect and the angsty love. Mysteries are my relaxation read; I intend to continue with this series. no reviews | add a review
Each day, inhabitants of a small community in the French Alps find another of their ewes with its throat cut. When one of the villagers too is killed people begin to wonder: could it be the work of a werewolf? Soon suspicion falls on Massart, one of the villagers, because of his beardlessness (according to popular legend, werewolves have no hair on their bodies because they are inside the body). Soliman, the victim's adopted son; Le Veilleur, a lonely sheperd and Camille, a lovely girl from the city, decide to pursue Massart and their hunt leads them into the Alps, but their incompetence is undisguisable and they decide to summon Commissaire Adamsberg - well known for his peculiar investigation methods - to help. Thanks to his extraordinary intuition, Adamsberg unearths an astonishing truth, one that the villagers are going to find hard to believe. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)843.914Literature French and related languages French fiction Modern Period 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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There is on issue I would have with the translation. One character kept referring to Commissaire Adamsberg as "old chap". This is a very English phrase and is very out of place in the mouth of a Frenchman. It grated every time I read it. Apart from that the translation was great.
Would I read more novels by this author?
Yes!
Would I recommend this book?
Yes.
To whom would I recommend it?
To anyone interested in murder mysteries. It contains no gore or extreme violence so if very accessible to all.
Did this book inspire me to do anything?
Yes. To continue reading books by Fred Vargas. ( )