Vargas, Fred: The Ghost Riders of Ordebec

I finished this excellent novel some time ago but have only just decided to review it.   The book
features Commissaire Adamsberg who is visited by a frightened woman who will speak to no-one
but him.   She tells him of a vision her daughter has had which, according to local legend, is a
forecast of death.   Shortly afterwards, a cruel, vicious man disappears and Adamsberg agrees
to investigate though rural Normandy is well outside his jurisdiction.   In the course of his
investigation, he meets and is befriended by an elderly lady who turns out to be the wife-to-be
of the local landed nobility.   She, too is attacked but does survive, thanks to Adamsberg's
solicitous behaviour.   He also meets and lusts after the daughter whose vision seems to be at
the heart of things as well as meeting her rather odd set of brothers.   As with all Vargas's books,
there are many twists and turns, a fair deal of esoteric information which just about relates to
the case, an almost irrelevant sub-plot, and, finally, a suitably exciting denouement.   It would
seem that Fred Vargas has few peers, if any, as she yet again produces a nonpareil novel.