Weird/unique or just different non-Anglo detective/mystery fiction for someone who loves Fred Vargas?

Looking for books for my mum for Christmas. It doesn’t have to be one in translation, but as she reads a *lot* of detective fiction, if it’s from outside the Anglosphere, she’s less likely to have read it already, and I think it’s more likely to feel novel if it’s least from a different culture (UK here, US would usually not be preferred: but suggest Anglo options if you think you have a really good one). It being from one hopefully might make it feel different in itself. She does notice writing quality to an extent but it doesn’t have to be literary, just decently well-written.

Fred Vargas is full of eccentric characters (like a homeless man obsessed with tailoring who drags around a clothes hanger with a now-tatty fancy suit), philosophically-tinged conversations that might seem random if you didn’t know the French actually do drop such questions into chitchat, and plots that combine such unlikely elements as a French Revolution society and unsolved killings in Iceland. Probably no one else writes like her.

My mum liked *Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead*, a sort of ecofeminist mystery (though the animal death was a risky choice. She spent all of *The Goldfinch* worried about the little dog). She doesn’t like anything that has too much bad language and more coarsely portrayed violence, dropping *The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida* for that reason (although her threshold for this is consistently baffling to me, she’ll read books I can’t handle). She enjoyed the Russian atmosphere in the first of the Sister Pelagia books, but wasn’t that into it overall (she does generally vibe more with female writers). And yeah, she loved *The Secret History*, since I know that’s a popular literary mystery recc and would agree it does stand out.

Suggestions appreciated!

by Amphy64