The opera singer Sophia Siméonidis wakes up one morning to discover that a tree has appeared overnight in the garden of her Paris house. Intrigued and unnerved, she turns to her neighbours: Vandoosler, an ex-cop, and three impecunious historians, Mathias, Marc and Lucien - the three evangelists. They agree to dig around the tree and see if something has been buried there. They find nothing but soil.A few weeks later, Sophia disappears and her body is found burned to ashes in a car. Who killed the opera singer? Her husband, her ex-lover, her best friend, her niece? They all seem to have a motive.Vandoosler and the three evangelists set out to find the truth.
Laurence Sudret Books
When strange blue chalk circles start appearing overnight on the pavements of Paris, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg insists on being kept informed of new circles and the increasingly bizarre objects which they contain. Soon a circle with decidedly less banal contents is discovered: the body of a woman with her throat savagely cut. Adamsberg knows that other murders will follow.
Auch diese Erzählung stammt aus der Sammlung „Die Serapionsbrüder“. Cordillac, ein vom Dämon besessener Goldschmied, tötet alle Besitzer seiner Schmuckstücke. Dem Fräulein von Scuderi gelingt es, Licht in sein dunkles Doppelleben zu bringen und der Gerechtigkeit zum Sieg zu verhelfen. Das Nachwort enthält ausser einem Lebensbild von E. T. A. Hoffmann das Gespräch der Serapionsbrüder über „Das Fräulein von Scuderi“ und Auszüge aus Wagenseils Chronik von Nürnberg, die das „Fräulein von Scuderi“ betreffen. Die Anmerkungen helfen, sich im Milieu Ludwig des Vierzehnten zurechtzufinden.