The Three Evangelists (Debout les Morts) is a 1995 novel by French author Fred Vargas, translated into English in 2006.

One morning, retired opera singer Sophia Siméonidis discovers a beech tree in her garden that she has never seen before.

Shortly afterward, a burned out car with a corpse is discovered in an abandoned factory yard.

The body is unidentifiable, but a small piece of basalt is found, which was Sophia's lucky charm.

Alexandra has no alibi, she stands to inherit a third of Sophia's substantial fortune, and her habit of driving aimlessly around at night makes her a principal suspect.