This Poison Will Remain

March 1, 2019

Three old men mysteriously killed by the venom of the nasty recluse spider all attended a local orphanage in Nîmes, France, but only two belonged to a violent bunch of boys within the orphanage called "the band of recluses." Trouble for Commissaire Adamsberg, back after A Climate of Fear. Vargas has collected four CWA International Daggers.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2019
Is the rash of weird recent deaths due to a spider epidemic or a devious serial killer? Commissaire Adamsberg is abruptly summoned from an Icelandic fishing trip back to France by Commandant Danglard, his anxious sidekick. The case involves a young woman, possessed of both a jealous husband and a lover, who's been run over not once but twice by a 4x4. As Adamsberg unravels this case, another even more fascinating one catches his interest. A creature called a "recluse spider" is credited with several toxic bites and two fatalities. The obsessively curious Adamsberg (A Climate of Fear, 2017, etc.) consults the Anti-Poison Center and experts at the National History Museum before he goes to investigate in person. The idea that anyone could release enough recluse spiders into a house to deliberately kill someone is roundly ridiculed. Nor does his team have much interest in pursuing the case; the victims were old, so their deaths could be coincidental. Characteristically, however, Adamsberg perseveres. Detective Veyrenc, who has a reputation as the nerdiest member of the force, finds an explosive lead in The Recluse Gang, a group of bullying boys who used recluse spiders to attack fellow orphans at La Miséricorde Children's Home in the 1940s. Could this be the break in the case that Adamsberg has been looking for? Readers hungry for an adventure that combines the depth and detail of a satisfying police procedural with a devilish mystery won't rest till they find out. Vargas remains the gold standard in modern crime fiction.

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Starred review from July 1, 2019
In French author Vargas’s brilliantly twisty ninth whodunit featuring eccentric Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg (after 2016’s A Climate of Fear), Adamsberg, who leads the Paris Serious Crimes Squad, makes quick work of a brutal vehicular homicide case to focus on his hunch that foul play was involved in the deaths of three elderly men, each of whom was bitten by a recluse spider. As its name suggests, this type of spider is not aggressive, and its venom is not usually lethal. But an uptick in such fatalities in France have led to panic that the spiders may have mutated or had their toxin’s strength affected by global warming. The expert Adamsberg consults at the Natural History Museum shoots those theories down, and his colleagues are convinced that the age of the victims made them particularly susceptible to venom. The sleuth’s doggedness identifies a link among the dead men, which he pursues. That the members of Adamsberg’s investigative team are distinct individuals adds depth to the sophisticated and rewarding plot. Vargas deserves a wide American readership.

Starred review from May 1, 2019
Vargas and her translator, Si�n Reynolds, have won the CWA International Dagger for four previous collaborations; this ninth Commissaire Adamsberg mystery (after A Climate of Fear, 2017) is another fine entry in a consistently strong series. As in the previous installments, Adamsberg pays polite but nominal attention to the rules of his Paris police job but quietly takes the cases that please him, even if, as in this tale, the work isn't clearly a police matter. This time the problem is recluse spiders?several men have died after being bitten by the spiders, though the bites aren't normally fatal. Adamsberg and his delightfully Gallic, languorous colleagues are stumped, and the clever investigation takes readers through spider-related science, ancient history that may have come back to haunt the victims, and various promising but wrong paths, until a satisfying and surprising ending. The translation retains a pleasant French air and a laid-back tone that's shot through with moments of piercing insight and, sometimes, horrible truths. Fans of the series won't be disappointed; this could also work for Cara Black's readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)