I read it in Italian, obviously. It introduces Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, a bizarre character who doesn't like trees or dogs, can't think when he knows he's thinking and is very slow in everything he does, but at the same time he's able to "feel" cruelty, and has done a brilliant career that has taken him to Paris. He appears to be so space-minded, he draws tree leaves on his knees, he never seems to be working the case, but in the end he always gets his man. :-)
He works with Inspector Adrien Danglard: he drinks too much white wine and he's in need of money. He lives with five children, two couples of twins that his wife left him when she went away with her lover, plus the youngest who is not even his son, because said wife had him with the other man but left him to Danglard so that the children would be together, but Danglard loves him anyway. Basically she's kinda like Benjamin Malaussene's mother, who knows, maybe in the other books the number will increase... anyway, Danglard doesn't tell stories to his children, but sometimes they discuss his cases together, and he likes it when they get upset because of his drinking because it makes him feel loved. awww.
Another character in the office is Florence, who always seems to have everything: whatever Adamsberg needs, Danglard can find it in Florence's desk's drawer.
Two weeks after he started to work here and already Adamsberg solves his first case. At the same time all the papers start writing about a curious thing: at night, someone draws circles with a blue chalk on the streets, and inside those circles are meaningless things like magazines, beer caps, garbage of any kind he can find. Adamsberg is the only one who pays serious attention to this. He sends Conti the photographer and Danglard out every morning to take pictures of any new blue circle found, saying they'll need all that when it'll get big and serious. Danglard is not convinced but somehow he likes Adamsberg and always does what he tells him.
One morning he finds a dead cat, and one day he finds the corpse of a woman with her throat cut.
Other characters in the story are: Mathilde Forestier, a famous oceanographer but also a very strange person who likes to follow people at random, and in doing so has also "met" the man of the blue circles. Next to her lives Charles Reyer, a beautiful blind man that she sought out for some reason, and offered him an apartment to rent, despise him being evil and angry at the whole world who can see; Clémence Valmont also lives there and kind of works for her: Clémence is an old sad woman, constantly looking at personal ads in search of a man and always coming back home in tears.
There's a second murder, a man, and then a third, a woman, Delphine, who is the wife of Augustin-Louis Le Nermord, a Bizantin historian who's written various books. Danglard and everyone suspects hi until after a few days he reveals to be the man of the blue circles and the suspicion drops.
Adamsberg investigates the dead man: the old doctor Gérard Pontieux turns out to be the same man that 50 years ago left Clémence, so now all the suspicions are on her, but when they go to get her she's disappeared. Days of search lead to nothing. One day Adamsberg leads his men to the country and uses dogs to look for a dead body, and he knows that's the real Clémence, been dead for a few months at least. The fake Clémence that worked for Mathilde was actually Le Nermord, it was all his evil plan to murder his wife and make it look like someone else did it. It was Delphine the real mind that wrote all the books, and now she wanted to divorce him and he couldn't risk her revealing everything, so he patiently planned this evil thing.
Adamsberg gets him. Good.
Mathilde turns out to be the mother of Camille, Adamsberg great love that went away nine years ago and he can't forget, even if he has another girlfriend and also sleeps with his downstairs neighbor, but in his heart there's always her, and when he hears that Mathilde is at the train station to say hello to someone, he runs like we've never seen him and he finally meets her. Camille tells him she loves him, yes, but she can't be with him, because it's too difficult to be with him, that his soul wanders too much, but so does hers, so he must let her go away. He goes with her on the train to be together for a while. Next stop is in two hours: he dresses again and goes out. Same old life again as usual...
Ita: L'uomo dei cerchi azzurri
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