An Uncertain Place
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What you need to know before your trail
Commissaire Adamsberg has left Paris for a police conference in London, accompanied by anglophile Commandant Danglard and Estalere, a young sergeant. The city offers a welcome change of scenery until a gruesome discovery is made – just outside the gates of Highgate Cemetery a pile of shoes, all containing severed feet, is found.
Returning to Paris, the three men are then confronted with the violent killing and dismemberment of a wealthy, elderly man. Both the dead man’s son and gardener have motives for murder, but soon another candidate for the killing emerges. As Adamsberg investigates the links between these two unsettling crimes, he puts himself at terrible risk.
Locations
Reset- France - Paris
- A: Gare du Nord
- B: Garches suburb
- England - London
- C: Highgate Cemetery
- D: Home Office
- E: St Pancras International
- Balkans - Serbia
- F: Kisilova
Travel Guide
London
The French policeman comes from Paris and he’s not keen about taking a train underneath the English channel. He’s only going for a conference and ends up heading up to Highgate Cemetery on a case. There’s some body parts in the cemetery – ones detached from bodies that aren’t supposed to be there.
Paris
Home again. Only this time there’s a grisly scene awaiting him in the Western suburb of Gaches, Paris. There’s a very bloody scene in one of the villas there.
“Going to London was fine by him: he would find out whether the Thames smelt of damp washing the way the Seine did, and what kind of sound the seagulls made. Perhaps they had a different call in English.”
Serbia
Adamsburg heads off to Serbia in search of a connection to old world vampires. Adamsberg is sceptical at first. But he soon finds himself ignoring warnings not to start meddling or even visit the tomb of Petar Blagojevic who died in 1725. Blagojevic/Plogojowitz was said to be a ‘vampyr‘, and the clearing in the wood, where he’s buried is known locally as ‘the place of uncertainty.’ Plenty of vampires and legends abound.
“Adamsberg was not a man who went in for emotion: he skirted around strong feelings with caution, like swifts who only brush past windows with their wings, never going in, because they know it will be difficult to get out. He had often found dead birds in the village houses back home, imprudent visitors who had ventured inside and never again found their way back to the open air. Adamsberg considered that when it came to love, humans were no wiser than birds.”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: An Uncertain Place
Destination : Paris, London, Serbia Author/Guide: Fred Vargas Departure Time: 2000s
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