L's Reviews > A Climate of Fear

Generally, for me to give a book 5 stars it has to strike me as a "wow" of course, and also contain something of social issue relevance. Well, I think the Reign of Terror qualifies for that last criterion. Not that the book is about the Reign of Terror, of course, but it is quite relevant to the plot. As for the "wow" factor, well, this is Fred Vargas; need I say more?

This is a complex plot, with multiple murders. There was a tourist trip to an uninhabited island in Iceland, a trip on which two were murdered when the group was trapped in fog on the island. Well, it was uninhabited except for the monster, who draws Adamsberg to the island. There is also the Association for the Study of the Writings of Maximilien Robespierre, an Association whose members are falling to murder. What on earth, if anything, so these two "groups" of people, and their murders, have to do with each other? Commissaire Adamsberg once again is on and off in a fog--sometimes figuratively and once literally.

Don't give up because of the messiness of the plot, the tangle of seaweed. This is a great read!