Chalk Circle Man

The Chalk Circle Man / Fred Vargas; trans. Sian Reynolds
New York: Vintage, 2010, c1991.
256 p.

I read this one as a break from darker, more serious books on my stack for this month. Also, because it was already on my shelves and very handy! Fred Vargas is the pseudonym for Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau, a French historian, archaeologist and novelist.

This is the first book in her Commissaire Adamsberg series, and the first book by her that I've read. It was quite a good mystery, set in Paris among a group of eccentric characters. It is mostly character driven; the setting and plot play a role but the characters are the entire point of the story, at least for me, although the essential "Frenchness" of the narrative really shines through. 

Since it's the first in the series, we spend quite a lot of time getting to know Commissaire Adamsberg (an unusual policeman who works on intuition and hunches rather than Sherlockian logic) and his new sidekick, the highly educated but alcoholic Inspector Danglard -- single father to five and an erudite though homely man.

In this book, Commissaire Adamsberg senses that the eccentric "Chalk Circle Man" who has been drawing mysterious blue circles around lost objects in the streets of Paris is actually dangerous, not simply an obsessive or an anonymous artist making a statement. Adamsberg predicts that death will follow, and it does: 3 murders happen in quick succession.

But why? And by whom were these murders committed? Even though the bodies were found encircled by chalk circles, it seems too easy to say it was the deranged chalk circle man. Is someone using him and his circles for their own devices?

Adamsberg and Danglard have to puzzle this out, in light of incomplete information and time constraints, plus their very different ways of working. It's satisfying and surprising, and the relationships in the book are engaging (I particularly liked Danglard and his children). 

Alongside the main characters, we meet an ocean scientist, Mathilde Forestier, and the people she gathers around her, like her lodgers, a blind man named Charles Reyer and a strange little old woman, Clémence Valmont, whom Mathilde calls the Shrew-Mouse due to her unusual features and pointy teeth. All of these characters are unusual and quirky, but I found that it all worked for me very well. I started to wonder about all of them at one point or another, with their strange and inexplicable behaviours, their actions that are as unpredictable and random as those of real people. 

I really enjoyed reading this, with all its asides to describe people and their thoughts and longings and motivations. There is consideration of motive and of a grander sense of meaning in this one too. 

The detection isn't done clearly; it's as intuitive as Adamsberg himself. So while I was surprised by the conclusion, not having seen it coming, I didn't mind at all because I was enjoying the characters and the entire set-up to this series enough to be satisfied with this book. 

Some people have loved this; some have not. I enjoyed it enough to start looking for the second book in the series now, which unfortunately I do not have on my shelves yet!