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    The Ghost Riders of Ordebec: A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery
    Unavailable
    The Ghost Riders of Ordebec: A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery
    Unavailable
    The Ghost Riders of Ordebec: A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Ghost Riders of Ordebec: A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery

    Written by Fred Vargas

    Narrated by David Rintoul

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A # 1 French and Italian bestseller from the three-time winner of the CWA's International Dagger Award

    More than ten million copies of Fred Vargas's Commissaire Adamsberg mysteries have been sold worldwide. Now, American readers are getting hooked on the internationally bestselling author's unsettling blend of crime and the supernatural.

    As the chief of police in Paris's seventh arrondissement, Commissaire Adamsberg has no jurisdiction in Ordebec. Yet, he cannot ignore a widow's plea. Her daughter Lina has seen a vision of the Ghost Riders with four nefarious men. According to the thousand-year-old legend, the vision means that the men will soon die a grisly death. When one of them disappears, Adamsberg races to Ordebec, where he becomes entranced by the gorgeous Lina-and embroiled in the small Normandy town's ancient feud.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 25, 2013
    ISBN9781101630617
    Unavailable
    The Ghost Riders of Ordebec: A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery

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    Reviews for The Ghost Riders of Ordebec

    4.5/5

    12 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A bit more complicated than the other Vargas books that I have read: Ghost Riders solves multiple crimes. As in her other mysteries, another house is filled with different (meaning weird) personalities. The Middle Ages erupt again bringing death. Old crimes fester as usual. And Commissaire Adamsberg is lost in the clouds as usual, but this time fascinated by one suspect’s breasts ("good enough to eat," he thinks). The book, the dialogue, and the Commissaire seem to wander more than usual. Many clues are dropped and left lying; many villagers and a menagerie of police pass through the pages. Adamsberg risks all (not normal) and his son (recently discovered in a previous volume because Adamsberg had ignored a letter from the mother many years earlier) joins in. The ending bursts like a boil on you so don’t worry if you get close to the final page without a clue as to what is really going on.
    • 4/5
      Commissaire Adamsberg is a delight. He is unorthodox, loyal, and the kind of copper who goes by instinct. He's not always right the first time. But oh, his journey and the reader's while he gets there is always a trip.Adamsberg returns in Fred Vargas's The Ghost Riders of Ordebec in a story about loyalty and ties to others that crosses generations. A pigeon is found with its feet tied together by a shoelace. Adamsberg is visited by a little bird-like woman from the countryside who is worried about her eccentric brood. One of them claims to have seen the ghostly riders whose presence has foretold the death of local ne-er-do-wells for generations. And one of those named has died -- a cruel hunter whose death appears to have been a cowardly suicide in order to avoide the ghost riders.Meanwhile, in Paris, car arsonist and anti-capitalist Momo is arrested after another Mercedes is torched. This time, there is an old man inside, a captain of industry whose two sons are neither one capable of taking over alone. The old man was ready to marry his housekeeper, who he had been sleeping with for 10 years, and who is the mother of his two younger children. Adamsberg doesn't think Momo killed the industralist any more than he thinks the cruel hunter killed himself. But proving himself right is going to be tricky at best, and may be impossible.In the country, there is the bird-lady's family, who insist they are nice people. They are protected by the local comte, who is connected to a strong old woman, Leone. She is the one who found the hunter's body and who puts Adamsberg up for the night. The local cop, Emeri, is descended from one of Napoleon's marshalls and sets a table in homage to that era.Adamsberg's squad resembles both a family that should be dysfunctional, but which works, and the unnruly, unmannerly squad of Commissario Salvo Montalbano in the novels by Italian Andrea Camilleri (which also are among my must-reads). In Vargas's earlier novels that were translated into English, his number two Danglard, he of the large brood of children and love of white wine and incredible grasp of pertinent trivia, was the main secondary character. He has not been replaced, but Adamsberg's crew is being featured more to become another worthy descendant of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct group of beloved characters.But of all the family ties in this novel, the greatest one is Zerk. He is Adamsberg's son, who our commissaire first met in An Uncertain Place, and he and Adamsberg are getting to know each other and respect each other even as the two crime investigations take over their lives.The Ghost Riders of Ordebec is a deceptively paced novel, as most of those by internationally renowned crime writer Vargas are. The story appears often to ramble as much as Adamsberg does. But it's all to a purpose. And, in this novel, the threads weave together in the end extraordinarily well. This is a novel worth reading not only for the whodunit aspect, which is handled with great care, but also for its characters who live and breathe beyond the pages of this story and for the tale they tell herein.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book and learned things about a region of France I was not all that familiar with. I read this just prior to a vacation and it was interesting one evening to sit next to an elderly woman from Vancouver who is a huge fan of Fred Vargas. This is the first book of hers that I have read and will be making a point to include others on my reading list. It has an interesting and historic plot line. And, yes, Fred Vargas is a woman!
    • 5/5
      Fred Vargas is such a delight! Commissaire Adamsberg is a true original, and so are the other characters that inhabit his world. I love the folklore aspect and the French ambience. Not to be missed.
    • 4/5
      Over the past couple of decades, French author Fred Vargas (real name Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau) has emerged as one of the leading international writers of crime fiction, thanks to her two sets of novels featuring, respectively, the reluctant amateur sleuths known as "The Three Evangelists" and Commissaire Adamsberg and his team of Paris detectives. One may get an idea of Vargas's quirky style from the opening chapter of this 2011 Adamsberg novel, which could well work as a stand-alone short story. Adamsberg starts his day with an investigation involving the death of an old woman who apparently choked on a piece of bread. However, things are not what they seem and the Commissaire finds himself suspecting the dead woman's husband. The chapter combines bittersweet humour and wry insights into human foibles with a neat little puzzle which will delight traditionally-minded crime readers.The novel "proper" is a darker affair. An unprepossessing widow from Ordebec calls on Adamsberg and pleads with him to investigate some mysterious goings-on at her native village. Her daughter Lina has had a terrifying vision of four local men being carried away by the mythical "Furious Army": a horde of undead horsemen who, since medieval times, have wrought vengeance for unpunished crimes. The Commissaire is sceptical until he travels to the Normandy village and the body of the first victim of the otherwordly horsemen is discovered. He becomes increasingly embroiled in the investigation, as the Ghost Riders strike again.It is no spoiler to reveal that there is a very human agency at work behind the gruesome deaths. Nonetheless, the novel successfully taps into medieval Northern myths to build an atmosphere of supernatural dread. It is at its best when the action is set amongst the mists of Normandy, a bleak yet haunting landscape peopled by eccentric and grotesque characters. Indeed, sometimes it feels like a Southern Gothic novel transplanted from the "New World" to a very old one.As is typical in such works, the Commissaire and his team solve a couple of "side" mysteries along the way. The subplots flesh out the narrative, and allow for the development of the secondary characters. Nevertheless, they do dampen the momentum somewhat. I also have reservations about the solution when it eventually arrives. This is a cut above your average crime caper, and a deserved winner of the 2013 CWA International Crime Dagger (jointly with Pierre Lemaitre's "Alex"). Siân Reynolds provides a fine and idiomatic translation. However, ultimately "The Ghost Riders of Ordebec" one of those reads in which the journey is more enjoyable than the destination itself.
    • 3/5
      This is almost a parody of the classic Adamsberg mixture: while the main plot line is about a series of murders in a Norman village after a young woman sees a band of ghostly riders carrying some local malefactors away in the forest at dead of night, there's an important subplot about a young man of north African descent wrongly accused of murdering a prominent businessman, and a charming animal story about a pigeon. And the usual little tensions between the eccentric members of Adamsberg's team. It feels at times as though Vargas might be getting a little bored with the formula. This one doesn't quite have the bite of a book like Sous les vents de Neptune, and it's not very easy to buy into the idea that Adamsberg's career is yet again on the line, but there's enough original detail and interest in the new characters introduced here to keep us entertained and interested.
    • 3/5
      was pretty good, but a bit slow in parts..
    • 4/5
      Another great Commissaire Adamsberg mystery full of interesting characters and an odd, but entertaining plot.
    • 5/5
      THE GHOST RIDERS OF ORDEBEC was recently named the joint winner of the 2013 CWA International Dagger.The other novel to share the award was ALEX by Paul Lemaitre.This is the 4th time that Fred Vargas has won the International Dagger.The judges of the award said “for all the differences between these brilliant novels, they share—among their other qualities—an original and absorbing ability to leash incredulity in the name of the fictional contract between author and reader. From the strange presuppositions of their opening pages, these stylish writers – one newly translated, the other long established, give us crime novels with superb plotting, interesting actors old and new, good dialogue in the service of characterisation, leavened by humour (sometimes of the gallows), and always an ability to upset our preconceptions. From the sometimes outlandish imagination which is Fred Vargas to the painfully explicit, but never gratuitous, violence of Pierre Lemaitre, these novels demonstrate the variety and quality of international crime writing.”I think what struck me about THE GHOST RIDERS is Vargas' "outlandish imagination" - the story begins with a visitation of riders from hell, who point to deaths that will take place soon in a remote Normandy village. Here the author has begun with a grisly legend, and then jumped into a modern day murder or two.Do people really believe in these hellhounds? Adamsberg is pretty sure he doesn't but others in his team are not sure whether they do or not.Adamsberg goes off to Normandy and his team in Paris continue to investigate a case where an elderly industrialist has been burnt to death in his car. The culprit seems obvious but Adamsberg is convinced it is out of character for the young man.This tale is totally captivating. I have this image of Vargas in times gone by, holding an audience spellbound around a camp fire, telling a story that makes you look over your shoulder. The story twists and turns towards its conclusion.
    • 5/5
      Every time I start to read a new Fred Vargas I rejoice to have returned to a world in which a character like Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is able to rise to the position of Commissaire in the 5th Arrondissement.This must be Adamsberg's most mysterious case yet, concerning as it does the mediaeval Norman legend of Hellequin's horde of ghost riders, who appear to the lucky (or cursed) medium, in the company of perhaps half-a-dozen local scoundrels, whom they have 'seized'. Within weeks, back in real life, the scoundrels are no more, each in turn falling victim to unpleasant and untimely deaths.The perfect setting, then, for Adamsberg's style of policing: subjunctive, metaphorical, seeing everywhere symbols, where those literal dogmatists around him see only the quotidian. Adamsberg takes his time; he thinks by browsing, he has this peculiar and inexplicable gift of divining traces in the world of what has passed before - it is poetic, and inspiring.None of which is to say that these novels are in any way difficult, highbrow, or lacking in action. The bodies pile up, there is a dash, where necessary, of police procedural, corruption, etc.For a great crime thriller, and for so much more besides, this is as good as anything by Fred Vargas, and much better than pretty much anything else in the genre you'll read this year.Buy it!
    • 4/5
      This is a series where it really does pay to read it in order. The character development becomes richer as the series progresses, and references to character traits are more understandable, as are the relationships between the Serious Crime unit headed by Commissaire Adamsberg. In this a woman pays a visit to Commissaire Adamsberg with news that deaths are about to take place in her village because her daughter has seen a vision of the Furious Army,death riders who 'seize' new recruits to their decomposing army. These recruits, all of whom are known to be terrible people, are considered deserving of their involuntary draft. Needless to say, none of the recruits are particularly keen in being drafted as it comes at the cost of their lives.Adamsberg is curious enough about this legend to visit the village and in doing so, he meets an elderly woman who gives him shelter for the night and also shows him the first death that has taken place. The police chief of the village is taken to task for not having done his job, and Adamsberg is assigned the task of solving this murder and potentially preventing the vision, which predicted 4 deaths, from coming to fruition.Distracted by another murder that took place in Paris, a powerful businessman, burnt to death in his car, Adamsberg makes some rather irrational and quick decisions that result in his son, a fugitive and a pigeon, needing to make a fast getaway under cover. As always, the author weaves a compelling and gripping tale.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful read and a good introduction to La France Profonde, the deep country side where people are strange. Who knows how the Commissaire gets his insights, but this is a good read and a twisty mystery.
    • 5/5
      I love the Adamsberg novels and this was no exception.The characters are quirky. The mystery always has a hint of the supernatural. In this one, Adamsberg is drawn to Normandy to solve a supposedly ghostly murder, while at the same time pursuing a rich murderer in Paris. In their usual vague way, he and his team manage to do both.