Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau (born 7 June 1957), a French historian, archaeologist and novelist.

Audoin-Rouzeau worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which she joined in 1988.

Her interest in the Middle Ages is manifest in many of her novels, especially through the person of Marc Vandoosler, a young specialist in the period.

In 2009 Vargas was again awarded the International Dagger, becoming the first author to receive it for three successive novels, in tandem with the translator, in each case Siân Reynolds.

[3] Vargas took part in the defence of Cesare Battisti, an Italian former left-wing urban guerrilla turned writer sought by Italian and French justice since 2004, who was found guilty in absentia of involvement in four assassinations committed in the 1970s, during the "Years of Lead".