The Three Evangelists

✍ Scribed by Vargas, Fred

• Publisher: Vintage Canada
• Year: 1995;2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 182 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Sophia Simeonidis, a Greek opera singer, 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 fired from the police for having helped a murderer to escape, and three impecunious historians, Mathias, Marc and Lucien - the three evangelists. They agree - both because they need the money and out of sheer curiosity - 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 nobody worries too much until her body is found burned to ashes in a car. Who killed the opera singer? Her husband, her ex-lover, her best friend? Or could it be her lovely niece recently moved to the capital? They all seem to have a motive. Vandoosler and the three evangelists set out to find the truth.

Review

Praise for the works of Fred Vargas:
" A Vargas novel is as good as a trip to Paris. The style has the same hyper-real quality as all her writing -- the real world, but filtered through a strange prism -- but it' s the plotting that really hits the spot: ingenious and ecccentric.There' s been much brouhaha recently about the Crime Writers Association' s decision to exclude novels not written in English from its prestigious Dagger award; there may be the consolation of a separate prize for foreign writers. But after reading Fred Vargas, you may feel that she deserves the main trophy."
- "Daily Express"
" Fred Vargas is a wonderful writer. Much of the joy of reading this book lies in Vargas' s wonderful use of language, her subtle characterizations and her superb sense of place."
- Margaret Cannon, "The Globe and Mail"
" Joyous, enchanting, amazing, fantastic, unclassifiable, beyond-brilliant. Readers will not hold back praise for Fred Vargas. With Have Mercy on Us All, the novelist spares no trick in keeping us glued to our seats."
- "Elle" (France)
" On the basis of this elegantly twisted crime novel, Vargas is clearly an author who will rank alongside Henning Mankell. The plot kinks and switches in an utterly compelling manner. Creepy, sophisticated and wonderfully off-beat."
- "Scotland on Sunday"
" The hero of this Parisian crime novel is one of the most fetchingly weird detectives I' ve come across in a while. Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg is a bit like Morse, but much more French."
- "Daily Telegraph "(UK)
" Slick, creepy and full of engagingly odd characters, this thriller is a class act."
- "The Independent" (UK)

About the Author

Fred Vargas was born in Paris in 1957. A historian and archaeologist by profession, she is now a bestselling novelist. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.