Crime/Mystery/Suspense ( )

I must admit that when I first started reading this book, I imagined I would never bother to finish it. However, it got a firm grip on my imagination and I could hardly put the darn thing down. :)

Chief Inspector Adamsberg has occasion to go to Canada from his Paris offices and encounters many things which perplex him. A murder is committed while he is there and things start to slide downhill from that point. Have the dead really come back to life to drive him mad? It certainly seems to be the case!

Well written, with a strange wry twist of humour. This book is translated from the French but seems to have numerous British expressions that I first found to be odd.

I recommend this to anyone. ( )

Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg's team from the Paris Serious Crime Squad is due to fly to Quebec for DNA profiling course in Quebec. Adamsberg's second-in-command Danglard, who hates flying, is praying every day that some urgent case will keep the entire squad home. Meanwhile the boiler in the basement of squad headquarters has suddenly stopped working on an October day when the outside temperature has dropped to one degree Celsius.

Adamsberg's mind works in mysterious ways, and a few days prior to the Quebec trip, he experiences an alien feeling of trouble. Something is causing sudden sweats, clenched muscles, and a singing in his ears. He is unsettled by something his subconscious has seen, something his mind can't explain. And then he realises it is an image he has seen of Neptune and his trident. His mind has dredged up memories of an invincible and arrogant killer whom he used to called "The Trident". A killer who always escaped and in fact had derailed Adamsberg's own brother. Adamsberg believes The Trident has been responsible for at least eight murders, all in different regions of France, over a period of about fifty years. Recently a girl has been killed in the countryside, the stab marks of the trident left on her body. But the man whom Adamsberg has known as "The Trident" is dead, so is this a copy cat killer?

Adamsberg is being thrown so out of kilter that he attacks an insolent member of his own squad. This is an unprecedented situation that brings both Adamsberg and the insolent brigadier before a disciplinary tribunal. Adamsberg goes to Quebec with orders not to get into further trouble. But how can he help it when The Trident follows him there, and a young woman is killed, the tell-tale three pronged marks on her body accusing Adamsberg himself of her death?

Sometimes this story became just a little too complex for me. But it is full of wonderful characters. The melancholic Danglard, waiting for promotion himself, loves and hates Adamsberg at the same time. He doesn't like the way Adamsberg has treated his former lover Camille, doesn't usually understand how his boss's mind works, but at the same time he is protective and supportive when he needs to be. The character of the squad's pillar of strength Lieutenant Violette Retancourt is wonderfully developed. And what can I say about the octagenarians Clementine Courbet and her boarder Josette, fallen on hard times? Clementine provides the ear that Adamsberg so badly needs, and Josette is a hacker extraordinaire.

Vargas has the ability to use just a few words to create interesting images. The lives of those in the station are at the mercy of the squatting inert central heating boiler, and the silent mother watching over them all, the coffee machine. And then there are the images of the exploding,smoking, toads - but I'll let you find out about them for yourself.

In the year 2007 WASH THIS BLOOD CLEAN FROM MY HAND won the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger Award. ( )

Commissaire Adamsbergs searches for Judge Fulgence, serial trident murderer and finds another victim in Quebec. ( )

I’m wary of serial killer novels, that subgenre of the detective story that is filled with devious super villains and is all too keen to fetishise violence. While real life serial murderers remain, thankfully, rare enough to shock, their fictional counterparts operate in a crowded market. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, simply killing people isn’t enough to get you noticed anymore - you have to do something interesting with the heads. I think he suggests making a Newton’s Cradle.

In Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand the killer is a former judge who kills with a trident and has been dead for twenty years. I think we can agree that’s a fairly interesting schtick.
Full review: http://www.26books.com/?p=248

This book is amazing! I started it with a struggle. Read the first few chapters and wondered whether or not to put it down and I'm pleased I decided the writing was worth perservering. Fred Vargas has such a good command of language; her writing is tremendous and it was this alone that kept me going. The translation is fine and I can't comment on how much work the translator has done.

The characters take a little bit of time to warm to but Adamsberg, the lead character, has such an amazing mind. Join all of the best detectives together and you have this one. The description of the the characters eventually brings them all to life - male or female. As the narrative is so well written you feel like you're in their minds and unsure who to trust.

The plot is adequately discussed in the blurb that it needs little clarification. Judge Fulgence didn't quite come to life as much as I was hoping but then I felt he wasn't the centre stage here and that it was as much about Adamsberg's journey for truth as it was the story of the Judge.

With unlikely heroes and heroines and the reader being taken down some wonderful paths this novel is one to be savoured rather than devoured. Minor characters change direction and suddenly have massive parts to play; characters that you thought you could trust arouse suspicion. All the elements necessary for a GOOD crime fiction novel.

This is my first novel by Fred Vargas and I would happily read something else she has written. Take your time, don't rush it and if you aren't enjoying it as you approach the half way mark then that's the time to stop. ( )

US publishers have finally discovered American readers are interested in the world outside our borders. We can finally get to know Fred Vargas, a surprising French writer whose mysteries have already sold 4 million copies in 33 countries and who recently was award the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger by the Crime Writers Association. What’s so surprising about this author? First, Fred Vargas is a woman. Second, her series is unlike any other.

Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg of Paris’s 7th Arrondissement is a dreamy, intuitive cop whose investigative style owes little to forensic science. Instead, he follows hunches that his logical colleague Danglard calls “jellyfish” – lacking a top or bottom, shapeless insights that are almost clairvoyant. That intuition gets Adamsberg into trouble when a woman turns up dead with three puncture wounds. He knows it is the work of his old nemesis, an aristocratic judge who has killed others with a trident-shaped weapon. In fact, many years ago, Adamsberg’s brother was accused of a murder that involved the same, signature wounds. The judge is able, almost literally, to get under Adamsberg’s skin, and when the commissaire travels with a team to Quebec to learn DNA techniques, it seems his enemy has followed. Convincing other, more logical colleagues that the judge might have a hand in recent killings is complicated by the fact the highly-respected judge would be in his nineties now. Even more problematic is the fact he died several years ago. But that won’t stop Adamsberg from pursuing the case.

Vargas’s unique style disdains labels and trends. Though the first in this series has not been translated into English, this book offers a good introduction to a truly intriguing series.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/... ( )

Reading Vargas in January is becoming a habit. For the third year running, I have plucked a freshly translated Vargas from the shelves and suspended all activity until it is read.

This year's offering "Wash this Blood Clean from My Hands" (the 4th translated Vargas) is obviously a successor of "Have Mercy on Us All" (the 1st translated story). We find Adamsberg back in Paris revisiting some of the contacts made in the previous novel. Yet the story stands alone.

It is in many ways a story of Adamsberg's personal development. Threatened by ghosts from the past and present emotional complications, he is very much a lost soul, vulnerable and on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

In typical Vargas fashion there is a quirkiness surrounding the central premise. Adamsberg has been hunting the serial killer, known as The Trident, for 30 years.

***** SPOILER *****

Adamsberg is still hunting him, despite the fact that he has been dead for 16.

***** END OF SPOILER *****

You just have to accept this during the first third of the novel, which is slow and irritating if you don't.

The paces picks up slowing during the second third which sees Adamsberg and his team visit Canada and the Mounties for a course in DNA profiling ...

***** SPOILER:

and Adamsberg accused of the horrific murder of his lover.

We don't know if he did it and, due to drink-induced amnesia, neither does he.

***** END OF SPOILER

The final third whizzes by as Adamsberg seeks to discover the truth / save his skin. The denouement is excellent, very inventive, Vargas at her best and makes up for the deficiencies of the first section.

On the Vargas scale, I would say this is a middling 1/2. "The Three Evangelists" remains my favourite containing all the Vargas signatures; an inventive plot, intriguing characters and a goodly dash of humour - something sadly lacking from this current effort. ( )

Adamsberg is at the centre of this one, suspect, victim and investigator. It didn't have quite the sense of place as the othere, I'd rather read Cathy Reichs on Canada. The plot was a little crazy, like other Vargas novels , and I thought got rather out of hand, especially towards the end. I enjoyed it a lot though, until right at the end, when all loose ends were tied up somewhat abruptly, especially the Canadian end of the story. ( )