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408 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
In 2008 the fourth of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books was published, completing the vampire renaissance, and ensuring that you couldn’t stroll through a bookshop without encountering a fanged predator lurking amongst the shelves. Not even the crime section was safe, for that was the year when Fred Vargas’ An uncertain place came out in France and brought us the prospect of commissaire Adamsberg as a latter-day Van Helsing, caught in the middle of a centuries-old feud between the blood-suckers and those who would destroy them.
One singular difference between Meyer and Vargas is that Meyer’s vampires are cobbled together from twentieth century vampire lore, as purveyed on the large and small screens, whereas Vargas’ are rooted in the historical past – the turbulent Balkans of the eighteenth century and the solemn Victorian splendour of Highgate cemetery. This, of course, is one of Vargas’ notorious strengths – to take an episode from another era (the Black Death in Have mercy on us all) or a figure of myth (werewolves in Seeking whom he may devour) and weave it into a contemporary murder mystery, forcing together the rational present and the superstitious past, scientific method and legendary practices. Little wonder that the resulting cases can only be handled successfully by a holy fool such as Adamsberg, a blissful surfer on the seas of instinct and intuition, with a little help from his sceptical sidekick inspector Danglard, who needs a raft of well-ordered facts to stay afloat.
Adamsberg’s investigative style, and by extension Vargas’ plotting, is guaranteed to irritate traditionalist armchair detectives who pride themselves on their ability to spot the culprit before their fictional alter ego does so (and in saying this I must admit I am to a certain extent just such a traditionalist). In a Vargas book there is no hierarchy of significance – the slightest detail often outweighs chapters’ worth of procedural toil. In the end, there’s no point trying to outguess the author. What we are called upon to do is to mimic Adamsberg’s approach and just go with the flow, trusting to the author to carry us through safely – and delighted – to the conclusion.
An uncertain place is true to the tradition of quirkiness that has marked all the Adamsberg books. The crimes are suitably weird and macabre – a collection of severed feet left outside Highgate cemetery still snug in their shoes and a murder victim cut up into 460 separate pieces, 300 of which have been pounded to a pulp, in a suburban bungalow outside Paris. The investigation is appropriately unpredictable – Adamsberg helps the prime suspect escape justice before taking off to a village in Serbia where he encounters not only his current would-be nemesis but an old one from a previous book. And the incidental detail is as rich as ever (the correct name for someone who eats wardrobes, why you should bury a vampire face down, why you should carefully dispose of your pencil shavings, ...).
However, there is a difference between An uncertain place and its predecessors. Adamsberg seems lonelier, more isolated, and as a result we miss the constant interaction with the rest of his team that was such a source of strength in previous books such as Wash this blood clean from my hand. Indeed, this book suggests that had Vargas decided at the outset to cast Adamsberg as a one-man-band, she would have produced a series of quirky books (possibly not too far removed from Douglas Adam’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective), but not the compelling saga she came up with. Adamsberg needs Danglard as Holmes needs Watson. No man is an island, not even the loopiest individual.