Customer Reviews

Have Mercy On Us All

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Over fourteen years ago, Joss Le Guern complained to the ship owner that the vessel he captained Nor'easter was unsafe. He was told he is to do his job or someone else will. The ship breaks apart; an angry Joss survives and breaks the leg of the owner. Joss is convicted of assault and battery and attempted murder; he spends nine months in prison and his sailing career is over.

After spending the next seven years as a drunk, Joss becomes a Parisian town crier. For the past seven years, three times a day he collects messages from his box and calls out the news. However, the message he finds this time claims the Black Death is coming. He takes the note to Chief Inspector Adamsberg, who assumes a hoax is being played on the crier; that opinion changes when he and his subordinate Danglard notice "hex" signs used during the Middle Ages to ward off the disease appearing on doors and a corpse that displays the symptoms of the Plague. Adamsberg takes the threats seriously hoping to stop the Black Death from devastating Paris.

HAVE MERCY ON US is a strong translation of a French police procedural thriller. Once Adamsberg realizes the biological terror is potentially real, the pace never slows down. Joss is a terrific character struggling as all whistleblowers seem to dio when they act courageously and challenge authority for behaving illegal or amoral, but in his case guilt leaves him a shadow of himself until now. Adamsberg and Danglard are terrific cops confronting a lethal unknown enemy with no time to spare. Fred Vargas writes a strong thriller that translates quite nicely into a one-sitting adrenalin read.

Harriet Klausner

First Sentence: When manie woormes breede of putrefaction of the earth: toade stooles and rotten herbes abount: The fruites and beastes of the earth are unsavoury: The wine becomes muddie: mannie birds and beastes flye from that place

Joss Le Guern was a sailor but has taken up his great-great-grandfather's profession of being a town crier. Hervé Decambrais was a teacher of history but now has a house in Paris in which he lets out four rooms, for rent or for favor. Commissaire Principal Adamsberg may not be able to remember anyone's name or maintain his relationship with his lover, Camille, but he has just been promoted to head of the murder squad in Paris. Adrian Danglard is shaped like a pear and the single father of five children, but his is Adamsberg loyal right-hand man.

Between the four of them, they must idenfity who is leaving strange notes, identified as taken from old texts threatening the coming of the plague, leaving them in the town crier's box, painting reverse 4s on doors, signifying protection from the plague, and killing people.

Written in French by Ms. Fred Vargas and translated, sometimes rather awkwardly, into Queen's English, I so enjoyed this book. Map lovers take note: there are three wonderful maps included in the book.

The collection of characters is quirky and interesting. "Normal" people need not apply. Yet it is those characters who bring this story to life and make it so wonderful to read. They are created slowly and with gentle irony by Ms. Vargas. This is definitely a character-driven story. That's not to say the plot isn't well done.

The plot is clever and believable with some good suspense. I certainly learned more about the history of the plague on the continent.

In spite of the translation gaffes--I understand they changed translators after book two--I really enjoyed this book. I do want to read more in this series.

Both my wife and I really enjoyed this book. Very interesting characters and a bit of a history lesson thrown in we highly recommend it for a change of pace.

The Chief Adamsberg mysteries are most interesting to this reader. the plots are rather maudlin and dark but well written and researched. This book centers around the plague and murders related. The premise, like many of this series, is not what it appears. Ms. Vargas weaves french history and culture quite beautifully with the characters' personalities creating a page turning read.
These are translated from French, and while some translations of books are ponderous and rather boring, these are not.
If you like rather dark mysteries with many unique undertones of sadness, mystery, history and culture, these books are for you.

Fred Vargas excels at enveloping a crime with layer upon layer of illusion. The author's imagination is so wild and whimsical, I never manage to foresee how the mystery will end.

This book brings us to an obscure neighborhood in Paris peopled by eccentric ex-cons. They include a scholarly old man who lets rooms at compassionate rents, a gorgeous retired black prostitute, a gentle simpleton who runs a skateboard shop and a blackballed sea dog named Joss who has revived the ancient profession of town crier.

Three times a day Joss takes his position in the square and, in his sonorous voice, analyses world events, forecasts the maritime weather, reports any shipwrecks, and reads out neighborhood news and ads submitted to him by the locals.

Joss won't generally read out nasty messages, but he decides to accept an incomprehensible message about filth, vermin and beasties. The weird messages keep coming, and the local landlord-bookworm finally figures out that these messages are predicting the return of the Plague to Paris.

Meanwhile big black number 4s are starting to appear on apartment doorways in various neighborhoods. These symbols, it seems, were used to protect against the Plague centuries ago.

Chief Inspector Adamsberg gets interested in these goings-on before anyone dies. Wooly headed as he is, Adamsberg is good at sniffing out evil intentions behind symbols. Adamsberg has just been promoted to the murder squad, and he now has 28 officers whose names he can't remember to help him track down killers.

Vargas presents us with loveable characters grievously damaged by life, and criminal activity so convoluted that even Adamsberg, with his love of illogic, is bamboozled through most of the book.

There's nothing like learning something while you're being entertained, and this book is a real education on the Black Death. Fred Vargas is a historian and archeologist specializing in the Middle Ages.

Although I read this mystery in a German translation I just love the style Fred Vargas writes in, and want to highly recommend it. The mystery is complex and spell binding, and the characters are convincingly realistic. All the irrationalities and contradictions of the different personalities are presented in a fascinating but not boring detail.
I also just finished reading another Fred Vargas novel 'Sous les vents de Neptune', and I am looking for more, to find out, how the American translation is done. However, it seems that not all of her mysteries are translated into English, which is unfortunate

I overall liked reading the book, plot etc., however, I did find the ending a bit hasten and forced. The problem I had was with the English used in the translation. The person who translated this book from its original French opted for very unusual and sometimes confusing phrases and expressions. It all sounded very stiff, clumsy and wooden. Almost as if certain expressions used by the author in her native French had been translated directly into English, making it sound artificial.

A rumpled chief inspector who forgets people's names, relying on intuition, logic and luck to solve cases, a character that almost stretches believability too much. The first few chapters are not smooth, this book was written in French and translated into a British style English. But once people start dying it moves right along, with an unconventional if not brilliant ending, a good read but not fantastic. Not as good as an Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus novel. It was entertaining to read but it did not leave me looking for more books by the same French author, a woman named Fred.

First of all, this book was written by Fred Vargas, not by Dave Bellos, whoever he is.

This is Part Three of an ongoing series of nine (9)criminal investigations led by Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg (J-BA). He hails from the Pyrenees, the mountain range separating France from Spain. There, as a detective, he solved many cases purely on instinct, never by logical reasoning, unlikely to develop tunnel vision. It earned him a promotion to Paris.
There he teams up with Adrien Danglard, a super rationalist, who has been a single father of two pairs of twins and a fifth child with blue eyes, not his own, for 8 years and 32 days since his wife left him, when this book starts. Despite daily frictions, the pair managed to solve 4 murders committed by a devious scholar in Part One of the series.
In this book another scholar appears to be on the rampage. J-BA is informed of two separate strands of evidence suggesting impending doom in Paris. Once again, historical expertise is called for:(1) The self-appointed town announcer of a Paris neighborhood finds ever more strange messages, sometimes in Medieval Latin in his in-box, along with excerpts from Samuel Pepys' 17th-century diary pointing to places and nearby dates of a scourge to come. (2)In ever more Paris neighborhoods, inverted 4's are found painted on doors. But in each case one door out of many is left blank. The frequency and acceleration of (1) and (2) converge, meaning that an explosion of some kind is near. All signs suggest an outbreak of the plague, the Black Death...
Soon, strangled murder victims are found, painted black with charcoal. Some have fleabites, others not. A hugely-complicated police campaign is begun. The details are for readers to find out and enjoy.
Anyone intent on reading this series chronologically should consult the internet: not all translations follow the French publication history of this very rich, well written series situated in today's Paris, often with deep roots in medieval history.
Before her series about J-BA, Fred Vargas created a trilogy called "The Three Evangelists". They are three thirtyish, alternatively-employed historians living in a narrow, derelict Paris townhouse along with the live-in father of one of them, a police Commisssaire sacked just before his retirement. J-BA is unaware of all this, being a recent import from the countryside, but he finds them and soon appreciates the existence of this strange commune.
Finally, this is a warm book about inclusiveness, respect for privacy, exuding a neighborhood-size spirit approving of eccentric characters. This reader is curious about what the meals served in café "The Viking" taste like. Fantastic book!

I absolutely loved this book. The characters were all unique, eccentric and interesting. I don't know if it's because the author is French or not, but she had a unique take on people and events. Lots of lovely little "pearls of wisdom" throughout also. I will defintely look for more from this author.