Demon of the Eiffel Tower: The Most Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blance-Sec

Adele Blanc-Sec continues her farcical adventures in French cartoonist Tardi's ( Adele and the Beast ) second volume about this no-nonsense mystery-solving heroine. Adele is no angel, and though ostensibly a writer, she's more often hatching a scam of some sort or looking to settle a grudge, in this case against a double-crossing partner who has victimized her. The sleuth now learns that her newest crony, Flageolet, has been hired by other parties to find a small statuette of a Babylonian demon called Pazuzu. She's faced with three apparently unrelated mysteries: Who has possession of the strange little statue? Why are people disappearing from Paris's Pont-Neuf? And what is causing a sudden outbreak of bubonic plague? There are plot twists aplenty, including a murder or two, as well as a parade of mysterious characters and more double-crosses. Adele's search ends with the discovery of an outlandish cult and a fight atop the Eiffel Tower. In crisp drawings with just the right combination of caricature and architectural precision, Tardi wonderfully captures turn-of-the-century Paris. (Jan.)