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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
Great crime novel with warm unusual French policemen who fill you with hope for humanity and for crime solving in general. Lots of interesting attention to detail but very different from the usual run of the mill forensic type crime novel. Do yourself a favour and bring some joie de vivre into your life - read a Vargas novel today!
Aucune objectivité de ma part pour celui-ci tant le plaisir de retrouver la fine équipe m'a comblée. Un Vargas dans les moments de sécheresse, c'est tout ce dont j'ai besoin.
Ah Adamsberg, Veyrenc, Retancourt, the cat on the photocopier, they are charming quirky characters and propel me through the books. As another reviewer, Tony noted, the stories are becoming a bit too far-fetched and have lost their way a bit. Is it because Mme Vargas is trying to pack in too many stories into one book? The ghost riders were a really interesting story line, did we need the 'murder by fire' in the car? the pigeon with the tied up feet (not satisfactorily closed for me), or was it all a bit too much? I'll tell you what was too much. That Adamsberg got away with letting the firebug escape with his 'son'. That is where it descended into 'silly' and the only reason to keep reading was the quirky characters. I did look at where I was up to in the book to see how many pages were left. Does that say something? It's a shame, but as a bookseller I will still be recommending Fred to my readers, especially the early ones.
Pas le meilleur - un peu trop capilotracté mais ça reste très agréable à lire, fluide et drôle avec de jolis symboles
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
‘The Ghost Riders of Ordebec’ by Fred Vargas is the usual blend of whimsy, murder and atypical characters. I love this quirky series! But none of the French Commissaire Adamsberg mystery novels is standalone. Readers must start with book #1, [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]. ‘The Ghost Riders of Ordebec’ is possibly #9 in the series, but I can’t say for sure as the lists for this series on Amazon and Goodreads are a bit messed up.
I have copied the book blurb:
A # 1 French and Italian bestseller from the three-time winner of the CWA’s International Dagger Award.
More than ten million copies of Fred Vargas’s Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries have been sold worldwide. Now, American readers are getting hooked on the internationally bestselling author’s unsettling blend of crime and the supernatural.
As the chief of police in Paris’s seventh arrondissement, Commissaire Adamsberg has no jurisdiction in Ordebec. Yet, he cannot ignore a widow’s plea. Her daughter Lina has seen a vision of the Ghost Riders with four nefarious men. According to the thousand-year-old legend, the vision means that the men will soon die a grisly death. When one of them disappears, Adamsberg races to Ordebec, where he becomes entranced by the gorgeous Lina—and embroiled in the small Normandy town’s ancient feud.”
Adamsberg is puzzling over a number of peculiar crimes. One involves a woman who has died in her bed, with a trail of bread crumbs on her bedroom floor in an apartment which is otherwise spotless, and another is a pigeon who is near death from having its legs tied together. The cruelty behind the pigeon’s torture and the husband’s lack of feeling about his wife’s death occupy Adamsberg for a short while, until a more unusual crime is brought to his attention.
A widow, Valentine Venderbot from Ordebec, is desperate for Adamsberg’s help. She tells him an amazing story! Her daughter Lina has seen The Furious Army, otherwise known as The Ghost Riders! Whenever they show up, four people are going to die! One of the four townsmen she saw at midnight being carried away by the ghosts in her vision is missing. The town is feeling mean about Lina, wondering about her apparent prescience. But Ordebec is out of Adamsberg’s jurisdiction. He dismisses Venderbot from his mind.
Another case is also being investigated by Adamsberg’s unit. A body was discovered inside a burnt-up vehicle. Once it is determined it is a murder, it is the responsibility of Adamsberg’s team to solve it.
As usual with Adamsberg, his head in the clouds, the case in Ordebec is the one that is calling to him for no particular reason he understands himself. He sets his team to work on the Paris car arson/murder while telling them he’s going to take a little time off. He will be in Ordebec for awhile…
Such enormous fun in reading this series!
I have copied the book blurb:
A # 1 French and Italian bestseller from the three-time winner of the CWA’s International Dagger Award.
More than ten million copies of Fred Vargas’s Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries have been sold worldwide. Now, American readers are getting hooked on the internationally bestselling author’s unsettling blend of crime and the supernatural.
As the chief of police in Paris’s seventh arrondissement, Commissaire Adamsberg has no jurisdiction in Ordebec. Yet, he cannot ignore a widow’s plea. Her daughter Lina has seen a vision of the Ghost Riders with four nefarious men. According to the thousand-year-old legend, the vision means that the men will soon die a grisly death. When one of them disappears, Adamsberg races to Ordebec, where he becomes entranced by the gorgeous Lina—and embroiled in the small Normandy town’s ancient feud.”
Adamsberg is puzzling over a number of peculiar crimes. One involves a woman who has died in her bed, with a trail of bread crumbs on her bedroom floor in an apartment which is otherwise spotless, and another is a pigeon who is near death from having its legs tied together. The cruelty behind the pigeon’s torture and the husband’s lack of feeling about his wife’s death occupy Adamsberg for a short while, until a more unusual crime is brought to his attention.
A widow, Valentine Venderbot from Ordebec, is desperate for Adamsberg’s help. She tells him an amazing story! Her daughter Lina has seen The Furious Army, otherwise known as The Ghost Riders! Whenever they show up, four people are going to die! One of the four townsmen she saw at midnight being carried away by the ghosts in her vision is missing. The town is feeling mean about Lina, wondering about her apparent prescience. But Ordebec is out of Adamsberg’s jurisdiction. He dismisses Venderbot from his mind.
Another case is also being investigated by Adamsberg’s unit. A body was discovered inside a burnt-up vehicle. Once it is determined it is a murder, it is the responsibility of Adamsberg’s team to solve it.
As usual with Adamsberg, his head in the clouds, the case in Ordebec is the one that is calling to him for no particular reason he understands himself. He sets his team to work on the Paris car arson/murder while telling them he’s going to take a little time off. He will be in Ordebec for awhile…
Such enormous fun in reading this series!
"Noi siamo buoni".
Un ottimo romanzo giallo con un commissario originalissimo, i collaboratori dipinti dai loro mille difetti, tanti casi da risolvere ed uno il più importante con una storia con richiami ad una leggenda del medioevo ed il classico colpo di scena finale.
Un libro che consiglio di leggere le pagine volano via perché il lettore vuole scoprire i misteri che si celano dietro alla leggenda del "sire Hellequin"!
Un ottimo romanzo giallo con un commissario originalissimo, i collaboratori dipinti dai loro mille difetti, tanti casi da risolvere ed uno il più importante con una storia con richiami ad una leggenda del medioevo ed il classico colpo di scena finale.
Un libro che consiglio di leggere le pagine volano via perché il lettore vuole scoprire i misteri che si celano dietro alla leggenda del "sire Hellequin"!
Although this book took an extra-ordinary amount of time to get through and had some boring strecthes, the ending was utterly satisfying.
Detective inspector - or whatever the French equivalent is - Adamsberg has three cases going in addition to the one at the start of the book. There is the case of the tortured dove, the industrial magnate that has been burned to death and an infamous arsonist framed for the murder and the main story, which is the ghostriders of Ordebec. The witness of the ghostriders sees victims riding with them and these victims then die untimely deaths. Four people with a poor track record are expected to die in Ordebec and Adamsberg must stop the avenging horde, or rather, a modern-day murderer. Quite fascinating. There is certainly a lot going on, I could quite frankly have done with fewer plots. I did like the dove a lot though. It was probably the most endearing of the characters presented.
My main problems with this book was translation. I read it in Swedish since I can't read French. The translation was stilted and felt wrong most of the time. I know this book is supposed to funny, but it simply didn't come across because of the language. Some paragraphs I didn't understand at all and since reading comprehension is one of my strong suits, it's probably not me. This book is probably fantastic in French and considerably better in English than what I experienced in Swedish. This is a common fault though, and the reason I avoid translations if I can help it, particularly translations to Swedish. The quality can be dismal since the volumes are so small.
Detective inspector - or whatever the French equivalent is - Adamsberg has three cases going in addition to the one at the start of the book. There is the case of the tortured dove, the industrial magnate that has been burned to death and an infamous arsonist framed for the murder and the main story, which is the ghostriders of Ordebec. The witness of the ghostriders sees victims riding with them and these victims then die untimely deaths. Four people with a poor track record are expected to die in Ordebec and Adamsberg must stop the avenging horde, or rather, a modern-day murderer. Quite fascinating. There is certainly a lot going on, I could quite frankly have done with fewer plots. I did like the dove a lot though. It was probably the most endearing of the characters presented.
My main problems with this book was translation. I read it in Swedish since I can't read French. The translation was stilted and felt wrong most of the time. I know this book is supposed to funny, but it simply didn't come across because of the language. Some paragraphs I didn't understand at all and since reading comprehension is one of my strong suits, it's probably not me. This book is probably fantastic in French and considerably better in English than what I experienced in Swedish. This is a common fault though, and the reason I avoid translations if I can help it, particularly translations to Swedish. The quality can be dismal since the volumes are so small.
C'est toujours un plaisir de retrouver Adamsberg et sa brigade, mais c'est encore meilleur quand l'histoire est à la hauteur du talent de Vargas.
M.E. schwächer als die Vorgänger. Drei Fälle (wenn man die Taube mitzählt), die, abgesehen von ihrer Gleichzeitigkeit, nichts miteinander zu tun haben, so als wäre es nicht gelungen, aus einem einzigen Fall ein ganzes Buch zu stricken. Bei Adamsberg sind die Handlungen immer etwas kurios, die Motive nebulös, das macht die Reihe aus, aber diesmal erscheint mir die Auflösung doch wenig überzeugend. Trotzdem natürlich charmant und mysteriös wie immer, gelegentlich auch lustig, eben nur nicht ganz so gut wie die Vorgänger.