Crime Fiction Lover
Dog Will Have His Day by Fred Vargas
Translated by Sian Reynolds — A four-time winner of the CWA International Dagger, Fred Vargas is arguably France’s finest contemporary crime writer. With every book, you enter a familiar fictional landscape that is not quite reality but rather a uniquely Gallic mélange of the whimsical, witty and violently deranged.
The only downside for an English reader of Vargas – the pseudonym of Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau – is the somewhat haphazard approach to translating her novels. Her 1991 debut featuring Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg was finally published out of sequence in 2009 as The Chalk Circle Man. For fans of her other playful crime series, it has been an even more frustrating experience. The first novel, The Three Evangelists, appeared in English in 2006, so I’ve been waiting eight years for this sequel.
Dog Will Have His Day is certainly vintage Vargas. It was first published in France in 1996 when Ian Rankin was an up-and-coming crime writer and nobody had yet heard of JK Rowling. Fortunately, Vargas has a timeless appeal: she tends to focus on fundamental issues of the heart and intellect over everyday details that might date her work.
The three evangelists are unemployable, history post-graduates who become embroiled in curious cases wherein their academic disciplines sometimes help. The trio have also acquired nicknames – St Mark, St Luke and St Matthew – although Dog Will Have His Day should more accurately be described as a one-and-a-half evangelists adventure.
In fact, the hero is Louis Kehlweiler, a former senior Ministry of Justice investigator on his uppers. Known as ‘The German’ because of his awkward wartime parentage, Louis is a bit of a boozer, keeps a pet toad called Bufo in his pocket and often shares his thoughts on cases with his amphibian friend (see what I mean by whimsical?). Now operating as a lone wolf, Louis has maintained his network of contacts across France and employs a system of numbered public benches to map out the streets of Paris.
At bench 102, his oddball informants are keeping an eye on suspicious activity involving a far right politician. By the seat, an eagle-eyed Louis suddenly notices something: a small bone that has been defecated by a dog. What’s more, he claims that the bone contained in the excrement is part of a human big toe. It’s a typical Vargas opening that’s both horrible and hilarious, and it has you hooked.
When Louis sets out on a seemingly impossible mission to locate the body – dead or alive – to which the toe belonged, he recruits a hesitant Marc Vandoosler (St Mark), who’s got a part-time job through his ex-cop uncle helping trawl through reports of strange incidents from across the country for Louis’s crime archive. Marc is reluctant to take any more time off his study of the 13th century Burgundy economy, though he becomes drawn into the tracking of various Parisian dogs and their owners.
Marc is not getting paid and it seems money is not a motive for the obsessive Louis. Vargas’s characters tend towards the quirky and their unusual thought processes are often as compelling as the crime under investigation, which has the effect of making you start to imagine that people around you in real life are odder than appearances suggest. Vargas is that rare writer who can make you look at the world differently.
The fantastic, surreal quality to the investigation intensifies when the duo head to a Brittany fishing village in search of their suspect – a pit bull terrier – and encounter the strange couple who own the dog, an indolent mayor and Louis’s ex-girlfriend. Mathias Delamarre (St Matthew) arrives late on the scene just as there’s a gathering of the suspects in the quintessential French café.
Despite its age, Dog Will Have His Day is as good as any crime novel you’ll read this year and it underlines the remarkable achievement of Fred Vargas in creating not one but two ingenious series in the genre. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another eight years for the follow-up.
Harvill Secker Print/Kindle/iBook £9.49
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
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Dog Will Have His Day (Three Evangelist Book 2) Kindle Edition
Shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger HOW DO YOU SOLVE A MURDER WITHOUT A BODY? Keeping watch under the windows of the Paris flat belonging to a politician's nephew, ex-special investigator Louis Kehlweiler catches sight of something odd on the pavement. A tiny piece of bone. Human bone, in fact. When Kehlweiler takes his find to the nearest police station, he faces ridicule. Obsessed by the fragment, he follows the trail to the tiny Breton fishing village of Port-Nicolas – in search of a dog. But when he recruits ‘evangelists’ Marc and Mathias to help, they find themselves facing even bigger game. A THREE EVANGELISTS NOVEL
- Book 2 of 3 Three Evangelist
- Print length 259 pages
- Language English
- Publisher Vintage Digital
- Publication date April 17, 2014
- File size 2699 KB
- Page Flip Enabled
- Word Wise Enabled
- Enhanced typesetting Enabled
- See all details
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- All 3 $38.37
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Editorial Reviews
"[Vargas is] one of the most exciting, addictive and inventive purveyor of classy crime fiction currently pounding the publishing beat." -- Independent on Sunday
About the Author
Product details.
- ASIN : B00JLLD7J0
- Publisher : Vintage Digital; Reprint edition (April 17, 2014)
- Publication date : April 17, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 2699 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 259 pages
- #2,403 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
- #3,860 in Ghost Mysteries
- #3,955 in Contemporary Literary Fiction
About the author
Fred vargas.
Fred Vargas was born in Paris in 1957. As well as being a best-selling author in France, she is an historian and archaeologist.
She worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which she joined in 1988. She later joined the Institut Pasteur, as a eukaryotic archaeologist.
She mostly writes police thrillers (policiers). They take place in Paris and feature the adventures of Chief Inspector Adamsberg and his team. Her interest in the Middle Ages is manifest in many of her novels, especially through the person of Marc Vandoosler, a young specialist in the period. Seeking Whom He May Devour was shortlisted by the British Crime Writers' Association for the last Gold Dagger award for best crime novel of the year, and the following year The Three Evangelists won the inaugural Duncan Lawrie International Dagger. She also won the award for the second year-running with Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand.
Customer reviews
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Customers say
Readers find the book great, fun, and thrilling. They also appreciate the quirky and believable characters. Readers describe the plot as original and unique. They praise the writing quality as wonderful, witty, and clear.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book fun, thrilling, and filled with surprises. They say it's a wonderful reading experience and doesn't disappoint. Readers also praise the author as wonderful.
"...Odd characters, funny, thrilling and filled with surprises, just very enjoyable !..." Read more
"...She keeps you reading with enthusiasm , if not desperation to stay up all night." Read more
"...Wonderful recommendation. Wonderful author ." Read more
"I love Vargas’ wit and her quirky characters. This novel didn’t disappoint although some readers might wish there was more of the three evangelists..." Read more
Customers find the characters quirky and believable. They also say the villains are terrifying.
"Vargas has become a new favourite among favourites. Odd characters , funny, thrilling and filled with surprises, just very enjoyable!..." Read more
"...I've read of the 3 Evangalists, but inboth cases, the books are full of unique characters ...." Read more
"...She brings curiously quirky characters to life , provides them with wonderful dialogue and hectic inner thoughts, and adds in strange murder..." Read more
"Fred Vargas delivers another mystery with her unusual cast of characters and insights into some of the quirkier aspects of French village life...." Read more
Customers find the plot quirky, original, and enjoyable. They appreciate the wonderful dialogue and hectic inner thoughts.
"Fred Vargas has a UNIQUE way of telling stories ...." Read more
"...characters to life, provides them with wonderful dialogue and hectic inner thoughts , and adds in strange murder mysteries to boot...." Read more
"...of finding a finger bone in a dog dropping, the plot is nicely and originally constructed , with Varga's usual diversions...." Read more
"... It's weird , it rambles, the detective verges on insane. You spend a lot of time inside the characters' heads...." Read more
Customers find the writing quality wonderful, witty, and clear. They say the author is clever and funny. Readers also appreciate the dialogue and inner thoughts of the quirky characters.
"Vargas has become a new favourite among favourites. Odd characters, funny , thrilling and filled with surprises, just very enjoyable!..." Read more
"...Her writing is very clear and succinct , no need to skim over fluff words, and I enjoy going through the side thoughts as the mystery is unfolded." Read more
"...Vargas' writing is wonderful and witty , utterly unlike the writing you find in most murder mysteries, and in this book, because it's mostly set in a..." Read more
"...your stories seriously you may like the book, some good lines, funny in places , worth the money." Read more
Customers find the author's writing style compelling. They also appreciate the breadth of vision and scholarship demonstrated in the story.
"...the author weaves into the story demonstrate the author's breadth of vision and scholarship . I've read all of this author's translated works...." Read more
"The best novelist to spend time with . Characters are like friends whose idiosyncrasies evolve mysteriously and never quite go together...." Read more
"...Fred Vargas are a wonderful reading experience, she is one of the best fiction writer ." Read more
" As compelling as all her books !" Read more
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