When Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg 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. 416 pp. 35,000 print.

Fred Vargas, historian and archaeologist, is a number-one bestselling author in France, Germany and Italy. She is the author of eight novels featuring Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, and has won the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger Award three out of the last five years.