Fred Vargas is my crime novelist of choice. She is an archeologist and historian who writes mysteries that reach beyond the normal. The characters are realistically unsure of themselves until they become absolutely focused on the heart of a matter. They never fail to show behavior that replicates the conundrums and quirks of real people and don’t mind a blunder in the search for truth.
A Climate of Fear (English version published in 2016. Original title Temps glaciaires, 2015) twists around the royalist cult that venerates Marie Antoinette, the Bourbon dynasty and other aristocrats. That royalist fervor still exists may seem outlandish to some, but it is absolutely alive and well in France and elsewhere. The right-wing political rhetoric spread by the politician Marine Le Pen and her myrmidons touches the backward looking royalist sympathizers.
On the anniversary of Antoinette of Austria’s death, royalists gather at a bar near the execution site, now Place de la Concorde.
with curios and printed memorabilia related to the Queen tucked in the windows.
The heart of the mystery and the backstory to the current series of murders takes place in Iceland, an excellent antidote to the passionate theatrics of re-enactors of revolutionary debate and the tribunals leading to the imprisonment and deaths of so many French people, whether blue-blooded or merely red.
Add a layer of die-hard royalist fervor, costume theatrical events and “Catholic ” occultism.
Double OO Books 