Joss le Guern is a town crier in Paris's 14th arrondissement. He calls out the local news three times a day to all who will listen. Over the course of a few days, however, a number of enigmatic & disturbing messages are slipped in to the daily news, & he becomes increasingly alarmed. Superintendent Adamsberg is visited by an extremely troubled woman who has found strange marks on the door of her building: upside down 4s marked out in black paint. This, & the appearance of the frightening messages, are exactly the kind of mysteries Adamsberg loves. In the course of his inquiries he begins to sense a sinister & often grotesque menace. & when a charred corpse is found, Adamsberg knows he's dealing with a particularly serious & chilling case. Have Mercy on Us All is Fred Vargas's masterpiece so far. She is exceptional at building mood & tension, &, as Henning Mankell portrays the social realities of contemporary Sweden in his Inspector Wallander mysteries, so Vargas does the same for Paris & France.