The second book by a major international mystery writer: this "exciting and careful whodunit is well-executed, page turning crime fiction" ( Publishers Weekly ). A small mountain community in the French Alps is roused to terror when they awaken each morning to find yet another of their sheep with its throat torn out. One of the villagers thinks it might be a werewolf, and when she's found killed in the same manner, people begin to wonder if she might have been right. Suspicion falls on Massart, a loner living on the edge of town. The murdered woman's adopted son, one of her shepherds, and her new friend Camille decide to pursue Massart, who has conveniently disappeared. Their ineptness for the task soon becomes painfully obvious, and they summon Commissaire Adamsberg from the city to bring his exceptional powers of intuition to bear on layer upon layer of buried hatred and secrets. France's queen of crime writing pits the maverick genius of Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg against ancient, primal fears in a novel that "establishes Vargas as one of the most unusual voices in European crime fiction" (The Sunday Times [London]). The second Chief Inspector Adamsberg mystery to appear in the U.S. draws on the same mix of cozy characters and dark mystery that drove last year's Have Mercy on Us All . The focus this time is divided among Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, the Maigret-like chief inspector with the French police nationale , and his former lover, Camille, who left Adamsberg at the end of the previous novel and is now living in a small village in the Alps. Trouble starts when it appears that a very large wolf is attacking sheep; then a woman is also killed, and rumors about werewolves begin to spread. Camille and two of the dead woman's friends are convinced the culprit is a man, not a wolf, and set off to trap him. Reluctantly, Camille agrees to call Adamsberg for help, and this merry band of eccentrics careens through the French Alps, their circuitous route suggesting Adamsberg's inimitable investigative technique: "an unending kaleidoscope of hunches and surmises that inexplicably gave rise to undeniably first-rate results." This is one of those rare series that will please both cozy fans and hard-boiled types. Bill Ott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Fred Vargas has everything: complex and surprising plots, good pace, various and eccentric characters, a sense of place and history, individualized settings, wit and style." -- Ruth Morse, The Times Literary Supplement (London) "Slick, creepy and full of engagingly odd characters, this thriller is a class act." -- Matthew J. Reisz, The Independent (London) 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. "From the Trade Paperback edition. Fred Vargas is a bestselling author of twelve titles in French, and is published in twenty-two other countries. A historian and archaeologist specializing in the Middle Ages, she lives in Paris. Seeking Whom He May Devour Chief Inspector Adamsberg Investigates By Fred Vargas Simon & Schuster Copyright ©2006 Fred Vargas All right reserved. ISBN: 9780743284028 I On tuesday, four sheep were killed at ventebrune in the french Alps. On Thursday, nine were lost at Pierrefort. "It's the wolves," a local said. "They're coming down to eat us all up." The other man drained his glass, then raised his hand. "A wolf, Pierrot, my lad. It's a wolf. A beast such as you have never clapped eyes on before. Coming down, as you say, to eat us all up." Copyright © 1999 by Éditions Viviane Hamy, Paris II Two men were lying prone in the undergrowth. "You don't reckon you're gonna teach me how to do my job, do you?" said one. "Don't reckon anything," said the other. Tall, with long, fair hair. Name of Johnstone. Lawrence Donald Johnstone. They lay quite still, gripping their binoculars, observing a pair of wolves. It was ten in the morning. The sun was scorching their backs. "That one is Marcus," Johnstone said. "He's come back." His companion shook his head. A short, swarthy, rather pigheaded local. He had been keeping watch over the wolves in the Merca