Voilà Madame Fred, France's Queen of Crime

I've always liked a good detective yarn, especially PD James or Dorothy L Sayers, so I'm grateful to girlfriend Claire for turning me on to France's own Queen of Crime, Fred Vargas.

Actually, Claire is steadily working her way through my complete PD James, which makes it a bit of a return match.

Apart from the fact that doing lots more reading in French is exceedingly character-building and generally good for me, Madame Fred can spin a enjoyable yarn with the best of them.

You will gather that in real life, Fred is a she, and also a professional medieval historian. Her pen name, of course, comes from the Humphrey Bogart character in that rather stodgy Hollywood saga, The Barefoot Countess.

I suppose Fred is about the equivalent of our own Ruth Rendell, being neither as venerable as PD James or as dead as Dorothy L Sayers.

Her suitably eccentric top flic is one Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, nondescript scruffy prong and all-round male slapper, but clearly a super-talented 'tec. He spends a fair amount of time out with the fairies, vaguely following even vaguer thoughts that no can make head or tail of, including himself. But naturally he nearly always gets his man.

The intermittent love of his life is the hapless Camille, to whom he is chronically unfaithful, without actually ever giving much thought as to why he inevitably behaves this way. Understandably, she then disappears for the next couple of books or so, causing him to pine in between murders. Latterly he seems to have acquired a couple of children, whilst remaining equally clueless as to how this might have come about.

Women-wise, he is usually on much safer ground with hyper-competent colleague Lieutenant Violette Retancourt, an exceptionally intelligent woman with a hidden heart of gold and the figure of an all-in wrestler.

Adamsberg also relies on loyal support from his deputy, Commandant Adrien Dangland, a single father of five, a formidable intellect and consummate sinker of white wine.

There's the usual cast of off-beat supporting characters, notably Les Evangelistes: Matthieu, Marc et Luc; three penniless historians who live in an old wreck of a house, la baraque pourrie, that they're supposed to be restoring in lieu of rent. The boys are usually up for helping with a bit of undercover work, always resourceful and generally all-round good value.

Just now, I'm head down in Fred's latest, L'Armée Furieuse. So far, a couple of people have apparently been struck down by supernatural horsemen in Normandy.

Meanwhile back in Paris a petty arsonist has been fitted up for the murder of a top industrialist, and Adamsberg has been threatened with the sack (as seems to be usual chez Madame Fred), if he doesn't solve the case in a week or so. The plot thickens. It's all rattling good fun.