Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand [Import] [Hardcover]

Fred Vargas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 2007

Internationally acclaimed and bestselling crime writer Fred Vargas will be published for the first time in Canada in hardcover by Knopf Canada.

In this remarkable addition to the Commissaire Adamsberg series, has a serial killer followed Adamsberg to Canada on his training mission?

Between 1943 and 2003, nine people have been stabbed to death with a most unusual weapon: a trident. In each case, arrests were made, suspects confessed their crime and were sentenced to life. One slightly worrying detail: all the presumed murderers lost consciousness during the night of the crime and cannot remember whether they actually did it or not. Commissaire Adamsberg is convinced all the murders are the work of one person: the terrifying Judge Fulgence. Years before, Adamsberg’s own brother had been the principal suspect in a similar case and avoided prison only thanks to Adamsberg’s help. History now repeats itself when Adamsberg, who is temporarily based in Quebec for a training mission, is accused of having savagely murdered his young lover. In order to prove his innocence, Adamsberg must go on the run from the Canadian police and find Judge Fulgence. The heir to Maigret, Commissaire Adamsberg is back in a new investigation that will keep the reader spellbound until the very last word.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

It gets personal in the third Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg mystery to reach the U.S. Previously, the eccentric commissaire of the French national police has maintained a disconcerting detachment, solving cases "like a lone ranger or a Zen archer who went straight to the target." This time, though, Adamsberg faces his personal demon, a serial killer called the Trident who, 30 years previously, framed the commissaire's brother for a murder, successfully avoiding prosecution for that and numerous other slayings. Supposedly dead for more than 15 years, the Trident has risen from the grave—or so Adamsberg believes after encountering a new victim whose corpse bears the tell-tale signs of the Trident's work. Convincing anyone of this fact is impossible, of course, and—distracted by a trip to Ottawa to attend a forensics course—Adamsberg returns to Paris to find himself well and truly framed for the murder of a young woman. Vargas continues to mix styles effectively, combining the light, comic touch of the best Simenon with much darker themes. This time, too, with the hero forced to look deep into himself, the novel adds an extra pinch of Rendellian psychology to the stewpot. Ott, Bill --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

Praise for 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 eccentric.”
—Daily Express (UK)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Canada (January 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0676977987
• ISBN-13: 978-0676977981
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,731,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maddeningly Addictive, Well Crafted, April 29, 2007

By 

J. Avellanet "author of Get to Market Now!" (Williamsburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand (Paperback)

Vargas yet again proves why she is probably the #1 mystery writer in the world with this book, the 3rd of the Commissaire Adamsberg series.

The book takes place in France and in Canada, but much of it explores the genius of a methodical killer who's mind clearly outmatches the protagonist Adamsberg - in fact, in many ways, that's the true brilliance of the book. How many mysteries can you recall where the main investigator was aware of how he simply could not get ahead of the killer no matter what he tried? Where each time the killer struck, the investigator was a day late and a dollar short? Where the clues began to add up, but were completely open to multiple interpretations?

And, as the story goes on, you begin to even distrust some of the Commissaire's colleagues, wondering what's going on - you feel true empathy with Adamsberg, the protagonist. And that is the result of a master writer at work.

Hopefully, as Vargas becomes more recognized in the US, her books will become easier to obtain. For now, the wait is more than worth it.

J. Avellanet, Co-Founder of Cerulean Associates LLC

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry for insomniacs, March 25, 2007

By 

Jim Coughenour (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand (Paperback)

Fred Vargas is in a league of her own when it comes to crafting a book of Continental crime. As attested by my manic list elsewhere, the wealth of crime fiction translated from Europe over the past few years is American readers' good fortune. These books from Scandinavia,Italy, France, Germany have a bracing tone of their own. They are poetry for insomniacs, exercising the mind, bracing the spirit at the end of the day -- with an egg-flip of humor lacing each page. Vargas populates her plots with a cabinet of curiosities, most a bit broken and peculiar but with powerful heart and mind: and her evil villains are so much like her good guys, she keeps you tantalized throughout.

What floats her books far above the rest, however, is that they're saturated with the rich brown jus of historical humanism--so satisfying!-- like a meaty cassoulet that's been simmering all week. Taste and see! These are great books for readers bored by the pulpy gruel of American mysteries, serial killers and mawkish macho detectives.

(And if you haven't read her yet, I'd suggest starting with "Seeking Whom He May Devour" or "The Three Evangelists." It's amusing to watch the characters develop. This book is the 4th translated into English. I hope we don't need to wait another whole year for the next one.)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A clever, thought-provoking read, February 8, 2008

By 

Judith A. Kunkel "Judith" (Scottsdale) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand: A Commissaire Adamsberg Mystery (Chief Inspector Adamsberg Mysteries) (Paperback)

Credit Vargas for transcending the traditional potboiler. Her characters are complex and fascinating and the plot twists through a myriad of dimensions that leave the reader breathless. This is the best mystery I have read in ages.