Have Mercy on Us All

Description

Each day, in honour of a Parisian tradition, a town crier calls out the local news to all who will listen. Over the course of a few days a number of disturbing messages are slipped in to his box, messages of portentous and malicious intent referring to the Black Death. Strange marks have also appeared on the doors of several buildings: symbols once used to ward off the plague. Detective Commissaire Adamsberg begins to sense a connection, even a grotesque menace. Then charred and flea-bitten corpses are found. The press seizes on their plague-like symptoms, and the panic sets in...

Fred Vargas was born in Paris in 1957. A historian and archaeologist by profession, she is now a bestselling novelist. Her books have sold over 10 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 45 languages.

"One of the most fetchingly weird detectives...Adamsberg is a bit like Morse, but much more French. An unusual, eccentric thriller" Daily Telegraph "Fred Vargas has everything: complex and surprising plots, good pace, various and eccentric characters, a sense of place and history, individualized dialogue, wit and style" Times Literary Supplement "Moody, tense and grotesque, Vargas's prize-winning novel is a fascinating exploration of Paris's dark side" Guardian "No procedural, this, as we follow the twists and turns of Adamsberg's intuition - but it is thoroughly high-class entertainment, notably as Vargas is not afraid to test herself with the narrative" Time Out "On the basis of this elegantly twisted crime novel, Vargas is clearly an author who will rank alongside Henning Mankell. The detective, Commissaire Adamsberg, is the antithesis of Sherlock Homes: intuitive, preternaturally alert to hunches, and shabbier than Colombo. The plot kinks and switches in an utterly compelling manner. Creepy, sophisticated and wonderfully off-beat" Scotland on Sunday