I devoured this book in less than two. Standing dead presents an unusual trio broke historians, the medievalist Marc Mathias the pre-historian, and Lucien contemporéaniste 14/18, which each occupy one floor of a rotten shack they share with an old cop deemed him as rotten, sponsor and Marc's uncle. The "evangelists" each have a character of their own, their mannerisms, necessarily related to their passions and specialties, they are eccentric, obsessive, dark. The style of Vargas is once again a linguistic delight. She practices the poetic slang, the talking metaphor, verbal imagery. The dialogues are lively, full of humor and finesse. It sometimes borders on surrealism, but it's still an infallible consistency. The plot is delightfully twisted, efficient, twists too few to be heavy, just well proportioned and well placed. For having met in Frontignan this year, I found that Vargas practice the same humor that his characters, biting, lively, intelligent and compelling, with a confusing natural. Unmissable.
