An Uncertain Place

Travel Guide

London

The French policeman comes from Paris and he’s not keen about taking a train underneath the English channel. He’s only going for a conference and ends up heading up to Highgate Cemetery on a case. There’s some body parts in the cemetery – ones detached from bodies that aren’t supposed to be there.

Paris

Home again. Only this time there’s a grisly scene awaiting him in the Western suburb of Gaches, Paris. There’s a very bloody scene in one of the villas there.

“Going to London was fine by him: he would find out whether the Thames smelt of damp washing the way the Seine did, and what kind of sound the seagulls made. Perhaps they had a different call in English.”

Serbia

Adamsburg heads off to Serbia in search of a connection to old world vampires.  Adamsberg is sceptical at first. But he soon finds himself ignoring warnings not to start meddling or even visit the tomb of Petar Blagojevic who died in 1725. Blagojevic/Plogojowitz was said to be a ‘vampyr‘, and the clearing in the wood, where he’s buried is known locally as ‘the place of uncertainty.’  Plenty of vampires and legends abound.

“Adamsberg was not a man who went in for emotion: he skirted around strong feelings with caution, like swifts who only brush past windows with their wings, never going in, because they know it will be difficult to get out. He had often found dead birds in the village houses back home, imprudent visitors who had ventured inside and never again found their way back to the open air. Adamsberg considered that when it came to love, humans were no wiser than birds.”