Fred Vargas

Joss le Guern has set himself up as town crier for the 14th arrondissement in Paris. For a fee he will announce messages left in his box, and some are enigmatic and disturbing. Meanwhile Commissaire Adamsberg is visited by a woman who keeps finding reversed fours painted on her building's door. He soon senses a grotesque connection.

In a small French Alpine community an ewe is discovered with its throat ripped out. When a villager is also killed superstitious people believe it is the work of a werewolf, and suspicion falls on Massart. Commissaire Adamsberg, summoned by inept investigators, soon exposes buried secrets, buried hatred and a very real problem - wolves! X rated, contains offensive language.

One morning in her Parisian house, retired opera singer Sophia Simeonidis wakes to find a fully-grown beech tree has appeared in her garden overnight. Sophia is unnerved. How did it get there? Who could have put it there and why?