''Have Mercy on Us All'' (french: Pars vite et reviens tard, lit. "Leave quickly and come back late") is a 2001 novel by French author

Fred Vargas Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau (born 7 June 1957), a French historian, archaeologist and novelist. As a historian and archeologist, she is known for her work on the Black Death. Her crime fiction ''policiers'' ( ...

. The novel was her first to be translated into English in 2003 by

David Bellos David Bellos (born 1945) is an English-born translator and biographer. Bellos is Meredith Howland Pyne Professor of French Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University in the United States. He was director of Princeton ...

. It was made into a film released in 2007.

Plot

Joss, a middle-aged former Breton sailor, begins to succeed in reviving the old family trade of

town crier A town crier, also called a bellman, is an officer of a royal court or public authority who makes public pronouncements as required. Duties and functions The town crier was used to make public announcements in the streets. Criers often dress ...

in modern-day Paris. Business is good, since people gladly pay five francs to hear their rants and nonsensical messages in parks and squares; every so often, ominous cryptic messages announcing the return of the plague will also be part of the day's requested cries. At the same time, chief inspector Adamsberg is surprised as a distressed woman describes that all her apartment building's doors, except one, have been marked with a large inverted "4" in black ink with the inscription "CLT." This graffiti continues to turn up throughout the city, and residents of apartments with unmarked doors are turning up dead, showing signs of rat-flea bites and blackened flesh. Inspector Adamsberg must lead an investigation that takes him through a juxtaposition of 15th-century Europe and modern-day France...or ''does'' he? 2001 French novels Novels by Fred Vargas French mystery novels French novels adapted into films Novels set in Paris {{2000s-crime-novel-stub