"When Commissaire Adamsberg, the chief of police in Paris's 7th Arrondissement, is called to the scene of a ghastly and highly unusual murder, he thinks it can't have anything to do with the nine pairs of shoes and severed feet discovered outside of London's Highgate Cemetery just a few days earlier. With the help of the murdered man's gifted physician, Adamsberg delves into the victim's disturbed psyche and unexpectedly finds himself on a path that...

When blue chalk circles begin to appear on the pavement in neighborhoods around Paris, detective Commissaire Adamsberg is alone in thinking that they are far from amusing. As he studies each new circle and the increasingly bizarre objects they contain, he senses the cruelty that lies within whoever is responsible. And when a circle is discovered containing a woman with her throat cut, Adamsberg knows that this is just the beginning.--From publisher's...