A disturbing phrase that accompanies the blue circles that appear traced in chalk on the sidewalks of the city will be the subject of Adamsberg's first investigation. Burma’s assistant Bob Colomer, having just arrived in France after being held prisoner in a German camp, is murdered at the Lyon station as soon as he reunites with his boss. Did her husband kill her, or her best friend; had she run off with an ex-lover and how does her niece figure in the mystery? This, as one person notes, makes him an "inside-out man," which reflects the original French title of this novel. The murder is out of Adamsberg's Paris jurisdiction, but he couldn't help following the bizarre story in the newspapers.

Smooth-skinned as a choirboy," he fits the bill: the mark of the werewolf is that he wears his hair on the inside, and at night he "turns himself around and his hairy coat appears.It turns out she hadn't been stringing me along -- and she had told me about it quite early in the book. Soliman, the victim's adopted son; Le Veilleur, a lonely sheperd and Camille, a lovely girl from the city, decide to pursue Massart and their hunt leads them into the Alps, but their incompetence is undisguisable and they decide to summon Commissaire Adamsberg — well known for his peculiar investigation methods — to help. Mais, je dois dire que je suis une aficionada aussi je n’ose pas le recommander de façon très ferme! He has a good rapport with his colleagues, although they find him a bit strange, and an even better rapport with the common man.

Le dénouement est très court, brutal, et toute la partie de poursuite de la bande recherchée fait très série policière américaine.As I said earlier, this is a novel on the lighter side of crime, and so should appeal to readers who tend to stay away from more hardcore crime fiction. I want to know what the cops think about these two murders, what lines they’re following, and how far they’ve got. S'ensuit un drôle de polar, qui n'en est pas vraiment un, puisqu'il n'y a pas d'enquête - le bouc émissaire est désigné dès le début, et n'est pas remis en question dans l'espace du roman -, pas de commissaire - notre cher Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg est à Paris, en train de régler une tout autre histoire, pendant les deux tiers du livre -, et même pas d'événements - puisque les meurtres sont énumérés plus qu'ils ne sont décrits, écrits, vécus. Seul un coup de chance de la police au début, qui donne d'ailleurs lieu à un épisode sans influence sur l'économie finale du récit (mais qui n'est pas sans importance thématique), semble forcer l'enchaînement méticuleux des péripéties.