The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas

Don’t be fooled by the title. This books has nothing to do with religion!

To explain, the three evangelists of the title are four guys who end up sharing a large, run down house in Paris. They are called Mathias, Lucien and Marc and his uncle/godfather, Vandoosler. Hence their nickname St Matthew, St Luke and St Mark as dubbed by Vandoosler.

The story concerns the disappearance and death of their next door neighbour, Sophia Simonidis, a retired opera singer of some renown.

Vandoosler is a retired police commisaire and becomes involved in the investigation through an old contact in the ‘flics’. The three evangelists’ help is enlisted in varying ways. The story is very literate and humorous as well as being a well plotted crime thriller. The characters of the ‘evangelists’ are interesting in that they are all historians who specialize in different historical periods.

Matthias’ interest is in prehistoric times, hence his predilection for wearing little or no clothes throughout the story!, Marc is into the Middle Ages, but seems more interested in the niece of the missing opera singer, and Lucien is a World War I specialist, who dubs the neighbours on either side the Western Front or the Eastern Front!

Although the books is by no means long, it does keep you engrossed and totally unsure of where it might be going and went a long way to making me a fan of Fred Vargas, who by the way is a female writer!