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Rating: Imagine the scene: one morning you get out of bed, ready (well, more or less...) to start a new workday and, as always, you open the windows of your room to air the space. Sound familiar? Good, now you're heading to the kitchen, eager for breakfast, when, out of the corner of your eye, you notice something out of place from the usual order your mind knows. You go back and stare a little dazed at what is in front of your eyes: there is a tree in your garden that wasn't there the night before. A big tree. A beech.
Feeling a bit confused? Relax, you are not alone.
The same sentiment begins to take hold of the opera singer Sophia Siméonidis when, one fine (?) day, she discovers the presence of a new shrub in her small garden - located in the residential area of Paris. Where did it come from? Who planted it? And why? are the questions echoing in her head.
The woman, determined to solve the matter on her own, starts to wonder who she could ask to intervene to extract that "rotten tooth infesting the garden". Discreet people are needed, capable of working without being noticed and able to keep a secret, especially in case there is something (or someone...) buried under the big tree. Yes, her sixth sense - typically feminine - suggests that it is not a gift from an admirer but something else, more insidious: a warning from a mysterious person.
And as it will be shown, often instinct sees beyond reason.
This is how the real protagonists of the novel come into play, namely the singer's new neighbors - three young unemployed historians (and the godfather of one of them) totally in the shit. No no, not in trouble: in the shit. Graduated in History, but completely jobless, the three find themselves forced, after years of not seeing each other, to live under the same (dilapidated) roof for economic reasons.
Thus begins the very amusing (and quarrelsome) cohabitation between the "aristocratic" Marc (medievalist, but housekeeper out of necessity), the silent Mathias (specialized in prehistory and with an aversion to wearing clothes indoors), the talkative - to say the least neurotic - and tie-wearing Lucien (historian of the Great War) and the "old man" Vandoosler - a former police officer dismissed for corruption and uncle of Marc, who will rename the ramshackle trio "the Evangelists."
Divided among themselves by historical eras and completely different characters, but united in a bank account permanently in the red, for a few bucks they will accept the job proposed by Sophia (when one is in the shit, news travels fast, right?), to finally shed light on the matter and ease her anxieties.
But when after a few days the woman unexpectedly disappears, the ex-cop Vandoosler will go back to doing what he has always done best (prying), ending up involving the three young historians in the investigation and thus creating an improbable, yet effective, investigative team.
In "Have Mercy on Us All," Fred Vargas - pseudonym of Frédérique Audouin-Rouzeau, zooarchaeologist and mystery writer by passion - writes an old-fashioned noir, inspired by the great Simenon, Stout, and Christie, where violence is absent and the investigative part remains on the sidelines - taking center stage only in the final chapters. The peculiarity of the work lies precisely in the amusing relationship between the quirky protagonists who compose it, typically French in style (did someone say Amélie Poulain?), in their little quirks, in the difficulties of young men in contact with a harsh world that does not reward merit (precariousness), yet without ever losing their genuineness and purity, appearing thus much more real than many other characters in more modern thrillers. Where every reader can, at least a little, recognize themselves.
If these premises sound interesting, make it yours. I'm sure you will smile often while reading these pages - even if afterward you will look out your window, in the morning, with a bit more hesitation than usual. Just in case there are any strange (and unpleasant) surprises...
Au revoir.
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