Un peu plus lion sur la droite by Fred Vargas

I like her style, her books full of eccentric characters, in a way more real because so different, with all their strange ways, because like in real life everyone is strange in their own way. Here we have Louis 'the German' Kehlweiler, or Ludwig, as 70 years old former prostitute Marthe calls him, who had a office at the Ministry but now spends his days gaining informations. He has a number for all the most important benches in Paris, and a lot of people who give him information. He's single, Sonia left him, and as always he blames his ugly face (only according to him, Marthe thinks different) and his bad rigid leg. He goes to bench 102 where journalist Vincent keeps an eye on a certain apartment, and he finds something strange: a tiny bone, kind of ruined because it came out of dog's poo, now washed by the rain. He has it checked: part of a human toe. We learn that Adamsberg has left the fifth arrondissment with Danglard, and now there is Paquelin, despised enough by Louis to make him want to bust him. He takes the bone to him and is kicked out, so when the story will come out and will be all unravelled, Paquelin will be the one to have dismissed a homicide case uncaringly. Louis has some help in sorting out all the useful information found in all the newspapers, someone Vandoosler sent him: Marc :-D Louis involves him in his 'investigation', and Marc calls for Mathias' help. yayyy
First they look at all the people with dogs around that bench, they find one that comes from out of Paris because here nobody has been found after more than a week. It's like 9 months now since Marc went to live with Matthias and Lucien :-)
Louis then goes to Port-Nicolas, but only after having recently-homeless Marthe move to his apartment. At first Marc didn't want to be involved, but he's annoyed that Louis went there without him, and follows him. Louis talks to the major and at first it'd seem like a failure, but he keeps digging: Marie, an old woman, died recently, apparently an accident, and she's missing a part of her toe... knowing when the dog left it, and when the tide was high, he can convince the major that it was not an accident but a murder. The dog didn't remove the boot, nor did the tide, so someone else did, and the police are called. Louis talks to the dog's owner, Sevran the engineer with a passion for typewriters, and tells him what happened, the story of the dog and the bone, and his wife Lina takes a rifle and shoots the dog. Marie had been her nanny and they had loved each other. Louis also meets Pauline Darnas, the woman that left him eight years ago, and her husband, an ugly little man that loves her , with a nice voice and a nice character. Louis likes him and he finally starts doubting that Pauline left him because of his leg.
Louis learns that Marie's husband Diego disappeared five years ago, that Lina's first husband died falling down the balcony while Lina and Marie were in the kids' room, and that Sevran and Diego were both questioned before the case was closed as 'accident'.
After they call him, Matthias comes too, and one night he hears something. Primeval hunter's instinct, Marc calls it, anyway they are on time to call the doctors and help Gael, that someone almost killed. Matthias finds Lina nearby. It was an attempt to confuse the investigation, and sure enough the police searched for Jean, although it's not clear to me why he should have killed his lover, or the connection with Marie's murder (had it been him); honestly it seemed to me Jean was the last one they should have suspected. I like that Louis helped him, at the end, with a few right words :-)
Louis finds in local René Blanchet the same René Gillot he has been looking for all his life, the same guy that at 17 used to betray his people to the Germans; some of them were saved only thanks to the warnings of German guard Ulrich Kehlweiler before he escaped, helped by local schoolteacher's daughter. One or two years later, 1944, René had fun torturing and killing people of the Resistance, but once he didn't notice that, at the end, that same girl escaped, found again her soldier Ulrich and they forever loved each other. Louis' parents.
Louis wants the names of all his men, past and present.
Matthias realizes that a body, probably Diego's, is buried under a big useless machine. Thanks to Marc and Matthias, Louis can catch the real murderer, Sevran, before he 'suicides' his wife to throw on her all the guilt.
At the end Luois does not go to Pauline to say goodbye, good, instead he goes to the café de La Halle where he warmly meets Jean and Antoinette gives Jean a glass of wine, and they all help Marc when his precious history notes are drowning after a glass was knocked over, that is to say Antoinette Jean and Matthias helped, Louis simply looked at the scene, thinking of telling the whole story to his old man, and also thinking, and saying out loud, that he wants a beer :-) Same old same old then :-)
I liked it . I like how she writes, I like all her strange characters, but most of all I love the Evangelists!!!