We've come a long way since the delightful, quirky Three Envangelists. Not a good way. On the plus side the ideas for the stories generated by historical material have been intriguing, on the minus however they do not always become sewn into a plausible, well structured modern tale. There are no complaints about the writing style but the plot and the structure of the story was so uneven as to be a chore to read. For anyone who hasn't read the previous stories there is a cast of a thousand characters with their own history and quirks, that we were are supposed to already know. There's Veyrenc, Voisenet, Retancourt, Froissy, Danglard, Mercadet, the cat. That's just his team....
Contrary to other reviewers I did not like some of the translated words. It really irritated me that they called the gang 'stink bugs'. A murderous gang with a dark and evil history - stink bugs. The things we flick off the lemon tree...(eye roll) It was also obvious that the person responsible for the murder and mayhem, would be....ok no spoiler here, but really? The motive yes, the means of investigating um no. Okay enough, my two main gripes are the rambling and dull relationship trials between Adambsbergs team and the implausible, ridculous unfolding of the plot. The concept was fine.
I recall hearing Alexander McCall Smith in an interview, saying he just writes and it becomes the story without any real need for editing. I recall thinking that sounded slightly arrogant and his later stories were for me too self-indulgent. I hope Fred listens to her editors.
In Three Evangelists, I enjoyed the debate between Mattias, Marc and Lucien as to the most important period in history and had high hopes for a series. Adamsberg and the Chalk Circle was a wonderful start to another series altogether but now I can't commit to another $32.99.

Dévoré en deux jours, j'aime toujours les Vargas, même si je suis d'accord avec une critique lue à l'instant : je me suis doutée de la fin.

While reading this I realized I haven’t read any other crime novels this year (granted, for the first nine months I could hardly find any books that interested me). But while I don’t actively wait for a new Fred Vargas novel, I have yet to be disappointed by her writing, so I always am happy to read her books.

The topic of this novel is a dark one, but to her credit she treats the victims respectfully, and never turns horrible experiences into anything resembling torture porn. Adamsberg is a wonderful main character, with his meandering thoughts and actions, and his interactions with his teams are almost as interesting as the case itself. I also simply love her writing, her quirky elegance and humor. Reading Fred Vargas is always a pleasure, and it‘s good to see successful authors who treat difficult topics smartly and with respect.

‘This Poison Will Remain’ by Fred Vargas, either #7 or #11, depending on which list, Amazon or Goodreads, you use to check out the Paris Commissaire Adamsberg series, is a horrifying mystery involving spiders and the abuse of children. But, as usual, Vargas writes with her strikingly different mystery twists that I’ve never read in any other mystery I’ve ever tried.

I didn’t exactly enjoy this one as I have all of the others. It was too sad, with awful happenings. Adamsberg, the main character, almost doesn’t solve the case he uncovers either. In fact, he almost loses his job over the mystery because he cannot convince his team that a number of very rare spider bite deaths were actually murder. But despite my occasional horror and sadness, the book is on the whole a wonderfully entertaining read because the main police characters are all so darling.

Adamsberg does not think like regular people, much less like a police investigator. He is a dreamy sort. He gets bubbles in his brain which float about after rising from the depths of his mind. The way he figures out he has a relevant clue is one of the mental bubbles pops, and suddenly he sees how a clue fits in along with the fact it is a clue to a case he is working on.

Adamsberg is a character that is completely different from any fictional investigator I’ve ever read about before. He does not operate like either Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or any of the typical hardcore American or Scandinavian detectives. Even the other fictional European detectives, whose creators often mix in their plots funny domestic dramas alternating with terrible criminals, do some thinking while sleuthing. Adamsberg needs to empty his mind and allow what he describes as little tickling bubbles to float about while sleuthing. Because he operates like this, his Paris team of police officers are often in doubt that he knows what he is doing. The only thing which saves Adamsberg from being fired is he solves every crime eventually, putting together the bubbles into coherent clues. His team follows him despite his bizarre ways because they are misfits that only he can somehow make competent by knowing their skill sets so thoroughly he helps them minimize their quirks and maximize their talents.

Every one of the Paris police team are wonderfully exotic and lovable. Adamsberg sometimes exasperates me, but I enjoy his peculiar investigations. These crimes begin often in a very weird and nebulous manner, so very opaque only Adamsberg knows they must be crimes because of his tickling mental bubbles. When he begins investigating, with his head in misty clouds of bubbles, the others often think him mad. It takes awhile in every book before the team is on the same page with him. Half of his team has faith in him and they are willing to go along with his unexplainable feelings to help him. The others are skeptical for awhile. I don’t blame them. It is possible if I were one of his team, I’d be skeptical of Adamsberg’s methodology too. He seems to operate like a medium receiving messages, although if he is, the author does not really permit the plot to play out like that in the end.

I have copied the book blurb:

”Commissaire Adamsberg investigates the death of three men linked by their childhood at an orphanage in Nimes, all killed by the venom of the recluse spider, in the new novel by the #1 bestselling French crime writer

“Spry, ironic, yet fully engaged with the horror of contemporary reality.”
—Los Angeles Times

“A wildly imaginative series.”—The New York Times

A murder in Paris brings Commissaire Adamsberg out of the Icelandic mists of his previous investigation and unexpectedly into the region of Nîmes, where three old men have died of spider bites. The recluse has a sneaky attack, but is that enough to explain the deaths of these men, all killed by the same venom?

At the National Museum of Natural History, Adamsberg meets a pensioner who tells him that two of the three octogenarians have known each other since childhood, when they lived in a local orphanage called The Mercy. There, they had belonged to a small group of violent young boys known as the "band of recluses." Adamsberg faces two obstacles: the third man killed by the same venom was not part of the "band of recluses", and the amount of spider venom necessary to kill doesn't add up.

Yet after the Nîmes deaths, more members of the old band succumb to recluse bites, leading the commissaire to uncover the tragedy hidden behind the walls of the orphanage.”

Of the Commissaire Adamsberg novels I have read, this one is more serious than the others have been. Every book has some real and uniquely French history driving the plots forward, but the history I learned in this novel was not only unique, it is shockingly sad.

Readers should not start with this book. None of the books are standalone. One must begin with [b:The Chalk Circle Man|6057611|The Chalk Circle Man (Commissaire Adamsberg #1)|Fred Vargas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572902973l/6057611._SY75_.jpg|2845151].

On m'avait beaucoup vanté le style de Vargas, présumé exceptionnel. Du coup je dois bien avoué, je n'ai pas été particulièrement touchée par cet aspect-là, j'ai trouvé beaucoup de divagations un peu ampoulées et pas nécessaire ni à l'intrigue ni au genre policier. Certains dialogues étaient carrément téléphonés, ça a eu tendance à un peu me sortir de ma lecture.
Mais c'était somme toute un polar bien ficelé, qui m'a tenue en haleine. C'était une des rares fois où j'avais deviné le coupable avant la fin (et avant l'enquêteur), ce qui m'a fait plaisir. J'en lirai d'autres, probablement en commençant par le début cette fois vu afin peut-être de mieux apprécier les personnages et les liens tissés entre eux depuis 11 tomes.

Der etwas andere Krimi was Plot, Sprache und Charaktere angeht. Wunderbar zu lesen, spannend bis zur letzten Minute.

Un bon roman policier / d’enquête qui nous tient en haleine avec un personnage attachant - Adamsberg. J’ai adoré ma lecture et m’y prendre. Mon seul hic c’est que j’ai découvert le qui et le comment avant de le lire et je trouve toujours cela décevant quand ça m’arrive.

Le indagini di Adamsberg non mi deludono mai.
Quello che veramente mi piace è il modo in cui tutto alla fine si ricollega alla perfezione, come ogni tassello del puzzle si incastri perfettamente.
Forse molti trovano banale questo modo di fare, questo voler ricongiungere tutto alla perfezione ma io provo un gran piacere a leggere questo tipo di storie, forse perché riescono a chiudere un cerchio perfetto, cosa che nella vita reale non si riesce a fare molte volte.

"È il mio vicino, il vecchio Lucio. Alla sera sta sempre seduto lì, sotto il faggio, con una birra. Dio lo preservi dai ragni. Da bambino ha perso un braccio durante la guerra di Spagna. Ma quel braccio era stato morso da un ragno, e Lucio non si stanca di ripetere che il braccio se n'è andato prima che avesse finito di grattarsi il morso. Quindi continua sempre a prudergli. Ne ha ricavato un precetto che, secondo lui, si applica a tutte le situazioni dell'esistenza: non lasciare mai un morso in sospeso, grattarlo sempre fino in fondo, fino a sanguinare, se non si vuole correre il rischio che pruda per tutta la vita."