HAVE MERCY ON US ALL. by VARGAS, FRED:

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[Complete number line 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1. True 1st edn and originally published with the title 'Paris vite et reviens tard' by Editions Viviane Hamy,PARIS,2001.Translated from the French by David Bellos.] FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj. Bright, crisp,clean,matt,monochrome photographic illustrated front panel of dw/dj,with brown,red,black lettering,brown lettering to spine/backstrip slightly sunned/faded; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no major nicks or tears present.Production fault of some slight wrinkles/wrinkling to front board's vertical fore-edge.Top edges slightly aged/toned with some minimal dust-soiling and some minimal, sporadic spotting foxing,fore-edges brighter and cleaner; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners,would appear unread - apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original plain dark blue cloth boards with bright,crisp,stamped gilt title panel/box and gilt letters to spine/backstrip,a brown+yellow striped headband and immaculate plain black endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,2-320pp [paginated] includes 38 (XXXVIII) chapters,plus [unpaginated] half-title+ title pages,note on author,b/w regional/ country (France) and street maps (Paris),an illustrated separator page (a reversed number 4),last page of text unpaginated,and 4pp blanks at the rear.
Joss le Guern,one-time sea captain and now town crier in the 14th arondissment of Paris,announces the items of news that are left (with a fee) for him to "cry" three times a day.A number of enigmatic and disturbing messages are being slipped into his box,and he is becoming alarmed. Commissaire Jean-baptiste Adamsberg is visited by an extremely troubled woman.She keeps finding reversed 4s in black paint on the doors of her building.Between these strnge marks and the town crier's frightening bulletins,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 symptons,and the panic sets in. Adamsberg,a detective of formidable intelligence and intuition but with a fragile memory,enlists a mediaeval scholar to help him unravel the messages delivered to the town crier and relayed to the neighbourhood. The delights in store for English readers of Fred Vargas are many - a haunting mystery,a plot of exceptional subtlety and a whole neighbourhood of suspects,men and women with secrets in a city on the brink of frenzy.Paris in Fred Vargas's novel is,like Commissaire Adamsberg himself,familiar but unforgettably different. Book was chosen by the booksellers of France and by the readers of 'ELLE' magazine as their 'BOOK OF THE YEAR'. Please contact seller @ rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,for correct shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page! ** N.B. ALL buyers please note,stocks' actual shipping/P+p costs are adjusted and any difference is refunded,after order's receipt and before the order's despatch,especially if the item(s) are offered either P+p included/FREE. ** N.B. US/Canada customers please be aware: Standard AIRMAIL postage from UK to these destinations can now cost more than the price of the book! If speed is not of the essence,then Economy rate is recommended - at approx. anything from a 1/3rd to 1/2 of the standard AIR quote/rate - sometimes arriving sooner than the 42 days - but not always.