This Poison Will Remain

Few contemporary crime thrillers can match Vargas's soaring imaginative flights

Sunday Times

Vargas writes with strength, erudition and unique imagination… In the crowded world of crime fiction, she’s a valuable one-off

The Times

A master of her craft

Irish Times

Brilliant and so well-written

Carla Bruni, On My Radar, Guardian

Fred Vargas is great

Pete Townshend, New York Times

Vargas has as loving and sharp an eye for provincial French eccentrics as Simenon... Vargas is an addictive writer whose surreal touches create a curiously solid world

Independent

France's most acclaimed crime novelist... Her novels about the kindly, quixotic Commissaire Adamsberg are unique, presenting us with a France that resembles Simenon’s in its concreteness

Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph

Adamsberg [is] one of my favourite fictional detectives. Vargas is a wonderful writer, quirky, endearing and always surprising

Ann Cleeves, Guardian

I so enjoyed This Poison Will Remain, real vintage Vargas: playful, thought-provoking, a total delight. And beautifully translated. Adamsberg is one of my favourite detectives

ANN CLEEVES, author of the Shetland series

In This Poison Will Remain, Fred Vargas has delivered an absorbing plot full of twists and spiced with her characteristic wit and style. Adamsberg is a terrific creation and his team of misfits a joy to watch in action

PETER ROBINSON, author of the DCI Banks series

Wry humour and offbeat plots blend with a subtly dangerous charm to make Fred Vargas the queen of French crime writers

MARTIN WALKER, author of the Bruno, Chief of Police Series

Fred Vargas’s books are murder mysteries, yes – cunning, corkscrew murder mysteries – but so much else besides: delicate comedies, engrossing tours of French geography and history, fascinating excursions into folklore and myth

A.J. FINN, author of The Woman in the Window

Readers hungry for an adventure that combines the depth and detail of a satisfying police procedural with a devilish mystery won’t rest till they find out. Vargas remains the gold standard in modern crime fiction

Kirkus Review

Thrilling… Breathtakingly original… A wildly inventive plot that puts Vargas’s real-life expertise (she is an archaeologist) to brilliant use

Sunday Times, Crime Book of the Month