Description

Each day, in honour of a Parisian tradition, a town crier calls out the local news to all who will listen. Over the course of a few days a number of disturbing messages are slipped in to his box, messages of portentous and malicious intent referring to the Black Death. Strange marks have also appeared on the doors of several buildings: symbols once used to ward off the plague. Detective Commissaire 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 symptoms, and the panic sets in...

Promotion info

'A delicious Parisian chiller' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

Author description

Fred Vargas was born in Paris in 1957. As well as being a best-selling author in France, she is a historian and archaeologist by training.