Have Mercy on Us All

Have Mercy on Us All is a crime novel by the French writer Fred Vargas, published in French in 2001 under the title Pars vite et reviens tard, meaning Leave Quickly and Come Back Late, and translated into English by David Bellos in 2003 as her first novel to appear in English. Part of her series following Commissaire Adamsberg, the novel is set in contemporary Paris and follows Adamsberg as he investigates mysterious inverted numerals painted on doorways across the city and a string of deaths bearing symptoms resembling plague, an inquiry that runs alongside a former Breton sailor's revival of the old trade of town crier. The novel's blend of historical plague lore with a modern police procedural helped establish Vargas as one of the leading contemporary voices in French crime fiction, and it was adapted into a 2007 film.