LO031 Murder, They Read: "The Chalk Circle Man," by Fred Vargas

Note: The registration limit for this event has been reached. Please put your name on the waitlist and you will be notified if a space opens.

In Paris, a string of enigmatic chalk circles begins appearing overnight on sidewalks, each neatly drawn in blue and enclosing odd detritus: a broken shoelace, a pigeon wing, a doll’s head. The public chuckles, the newspapers speculate, and the police shrug at what seems no more than eccentric street art. But Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, newly arrived in the capital, takes the circles seriously—sensing, with his trademark intuition, a lurking menace others dismiss.

When a murdered woman is discovered within one of the circles, Adamsberg’s unease proves justified. Patient, dreamy, and quietly obstinate, he pieces together fragments others overlook, while his skeptical lieutenant, Danglard, provides a foil of logic and doubt. As the circles multiply, so do the suspects: the lonely, the unstable, the overlooked of Paris life.

Blending whimsy with dread, Vargas transforms an apparently trivial curiosity into a chilling puzzle. Through Adamsberg’s unorthodox gaze, the novel explores how society notices—or fails to notice—signs of danger hidden in plain sight. The Chalk Circle Man not only introduces Vargas’s singular detective but also inaugurates a series where intuition and strangeness often prove more revealing than methodical deduction.

Registration for the October meeting will open on Saturday, 06 September. People on the September wait list have first priority for registration.