Peter Guttridge's latest review column

Peter Guttridge's latest review column for The Observer is up. This time his reviews include Fred Vargas' 'Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand'.

Fred Vargas is another original. In Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand (Harvill Secker £11.99, pp400), first published in France three years ago, her doughty policeman, Commissaire Adamsberg, is sent to Quebec for training and discovers a serial killer has followed him. Before long, Adamsberg is on the run from the Canadian police, accused of murdering a young woman he has only just met. He believes he knows the true murderer, the fearsome Judge Fulgence, who may be responsible for nine other murders over a 60-year period and whose unusual weapon of choice is the trident. Vargas, who won last year's inaugural Duncan Lawrie International Dagger, has a wonderfully offbeat imagination that makes each of her novels a refreshing delight.