Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Joan Smith, The Sunday Times
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
93 of 101 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fred Vargas - The Three Evangelists,
By
This review is from: The Three Evangelists (Paperback)
One morning in her Parisian house, retired Greek opera singer Sophia Simeonidis wakes to find a beech tree has appeared in her garden overnight. A fully-grown beech tree. Her husband Pierre is unconcerned, but Sophia is distinctly unnerved. How could it have got there? Who could have put it there and why? What possible reason could there be? If it’s a simple practical joke it’s not particularly funny, if it’s a symbolic warning it’s pretty obscure. She seeks help from her hew neighbours, three eccentric young historians down on their luck and an elderly ex-cop who’ve just moved into the ramshackle house next door. The problem intrigues them, and, besides, they need all the cash they can get, so agree to dig around the tree and see if anything’s been buried underneath it. They find nothing. And for a few weeks the bizarre, inexplicable mystery remains exactly that. Until Sophia disappears. Nobody is greatly worried. Well, at least not until the point when worrying is pretty useless: a few days later her body is found in a burnt-out car. Suddenly, the mysterious tree – though still equally mysterious – seems ever-more sinister. But why? The three historians line up a plethora of mysterious suspects (her husband, her ex-lover, her niece newly returned to the capital with her child, her best friend?) and vow to discover who killed their neighbour. It’s hard to express how good Vargas’s novels are. At least, without seeming to launch into an overenthusiastic, over-the-top, laudatory rant. Witness one press review: “Joyous, enchanting, amazing, fantastic, unclassifiable, beyond-brilliant. Readers will not hold back praise for Fred Vargas.” A bit OTT, no? Well, no, not really. The Three Evangelists is the best so far, and contains every element that have made critics laud her to the skies: a charming, witty, quirky style, an original and gripping plot constantly fresh with twists, and endearingly eccentric, likeable characters (the three historians – or, “evangelists” are the most quirky and entertaining bunch of protagonists you’ll likely come across; their individual characters and interactions are hugely funny). The best writers are those whose work is incomparable to any other, completely original, and Vargas fits this mould as if she were designed for it. The Three Evangelists is edgy but humorous, sinister yet light, clever but a huge amount of fun. The characters are odd (sometimes downright weird) but still real. The plots are unlikely but, due to their originality and tone, fascinating to a ludicrous degree. I’ve said this before, but I can’t really describe what makes Vargas’s books so special, so unique. They adhere to loose conventions of a mystery novel, but are unlike any other mystery novels you’ve read, in tone at least, and certainly in style. This might be the crowning feature of Vargas’s work (or maybe just the grounding one, I don’t know), the style, which just bristles with knowing fun, while taking the story itself completely seriously. Too, she garnishes both unusual and everyday events with an itchy sinister atmosphere (the appearance of a tree has never, ever been so unnerving) that, coupled with the quirky fun, puts both in the spotlight in a more pointed, powerful way. You always know when authors had fun writing a book, and this is one of them. Some of the lines, some of the understated ironic asides Vargas offers about her characters, are laugh-out-loud funny in a way more associated with Terry Pratchett And how is it as a mystery novel? Well, in terms of being a crime novel, The Three Evangelists is the best puzzle, the most well-written and crafted clutch of surprises, that I have read in absolute months. You may think you know what’s going on, guessed what Vargas has up her sleeve, but you are, in the end, wrong. She turns the tables brilliantly several times with a mystery and story that is never as simple as it appears to be. It’s a complete joy to read, and I very much hope you do so. This might, already, be the best crime novel of 2006. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must read book,
By
This review is from: The Three Evangelists (Paperback)
I love all of the Fred Vargas work. However the translation is not amazing. I have read her books in german and english and the german version is so much more enjoyable. Fred Vargas has the ability to make the reader love all her characters. You will start to love Adamsberg and all the characters helping him to solve the cases. If you are lucky enough to read french or german read it in these languages. Otherwise just give her a try and you will soon buy all her work.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
4.5 Stars - Love The Three Evangelists,
By
This review is from: The Three Evangelists (Paperback)
First Sentence: `Pierre, something's wrong with the garden,' said Sophia.Three young historians, Mathias, Marc and Lucian, and Marc's ex-policeman uncle, Armand, buy a ramshackle house, known as the `disgrace'. When Armand sees the three young men standing each framed by a section of a gothic window, he coins them "the three evangelists." Their neighbor, Sophia, is an former opera singer. When she finds a tree has been planted in her garden, it causes her worry. She hires the young men to dig it up, just to reassure her that nothing is planted under it. When Sophia disappears, the young men, with the help of Armand, are determined to find out what happened. I particularly like books which are character driven, and this certainly was. I loved the characters. Sophia, the retired opera singer worried about a tree which appears in her garden, the three evangelists, so named by Armand, an ex-flic and uncle to St. Mark (Marc the Middle Ages historian who always wears black), St. Martin (Mathias the Prehistoric historian who dislikes wearing clothes), and St. Luck (Lucian the Great Wars historian who always wears a tie). I felt Vargas really liked her characters and made me like them in turn. Even the house, in which the four men live, almost becomes a character in the story. The story is wonderfully plotted, escalating bit-by-bit to the final climatic reveal. The reveal itself was particularly well done as it wasn't dry and unemotional, as most are, but filled with pain and disappointment. Perhaps because she is Parisian and writing about her own city, there wasn't as strong a sense of place as I, a foreigner, might have liked. However, it is her familiarity with place that made me feel comfortable there as well. This was one of the better translations. The dialogue worked very well, particularly the occasional banter between the principal characters. Vargas' writing captivates me. It is filled with warmth, humor and emotion. I highly recommend it.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
