Captain Paul Darac of the Brigade Criminelle arrives at a crime scene to find a woman's mutilated corpse. Initially routine, the case deepens and darkens into a complex enquiry that threatens to close in on Darac himself.

But allegiances past and present must be set aside to unravel a tale of greed, deception and treachery that spans the social spectrum. It is among the winding streets of his own neighbourhood in Nice's old town, the Babazouk, that Darac faces his severest test yet.