She describes such bizarre characters, but also kind of adorable, these three Evangelists. Marc Vandoosler, with his rings and black clothes, so nervous and stubborn; Mathias Delamarre who hates to wear clothes, the blonde giant always so quiet and slow and silent; Lucien Devernois, so loud, that always wears a tie and likes things clean and neat and can make a cake.
I like these three guys that being without a job and without money get together to be able to afford a house, with a very low rent because it's in ruins and they do all the work themselves to make it liveable. They're three historians who take their own periods of study very seriously: Mathias prehistory, Marc MiddleAges, Lucien the Great War. They live in this big house with Marc's uncle, Armand Vandoosler, once policeman, now sort-of retired, kicked-out might be more accurate.
The godfather, he calls him, the brother of his mother, who gave his own name because she was a single mom. Marc was married, but his wife left him and ran away with another man.
Their next-door neighbor is Sophia Relivaus, born Siméonidis, a soprano singer who retired six years ago and that only Mathias knew, the only one to go to the opera. One morning she wakes up and there's a tree in her garden, and that worries her. She pays them to dig under it, but there's nothing there. When Sophia disappears, her friend Juliette of the restaurant is worried, but her husband is not, he says she went away and she'll come back. When her niece Alexandra comes at the door at night with her five years old son it's more and more unbelievable that Sophia simply went away forgetting about her. Uncle Vandoosler informs the police who dig again, but again nothing there. When the burned body of a woman is found with things that belonged to Sophia, the investigations on her murder start officially. Marc likes Alexandra and wants to defend her, always angry at everything the police or his uncle do or say. On day Christophe Dompierre comes looking for answers, because years ago his father was murdered but the event was dismissed as a drug-related business, and nobody believed the wife and son's words against that theory. He's close to the truth now, but he's killed, stabbed. Suspicions are again on Alexandra who, more than proud and stubborn, is an idiot in my opinion. With all the troubles she's in she still goes wandering all night instead of flying low and keep quiet.
Suspicions eventually move from her to Juliette's brother Georges, who worked as an extra in her shows and one night attacked her. When the simple clue of the dying man writing his murderer's name is found, not in blood this time but with his hand of a dirty black car, they all read Sofia Siméonidis, but Marc thinks a lot and realizes that he wrote something else. It was Sophia's substitute, her double ( Sophie=sofie confused with sosie)=Juliette. Marc runs like hell because Mathias has gone alone with her and arrives just in time to save him. Everyone is shocked by her evil plan. She buried Sophie under the tree where nobody would have looked again, and burned a homeless woman. Mathias is shocked because he liked her, and had been really attracted to her. Case closed.
I really liked these three historians, didn't are too much for the uncle. I like Lucien, so lively and passionate about his work , and I like Mathias that thinks more than he talks but is very considerate and sweet. Marc was at times annoying, getting so easily angry, but all in all I like him too.
Nice book, well written, I'll look for others of her books, I really enjoyed these two. I hope she wrote again about them, it seems like they deserve more books, more space.
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