Catherine Gauthier is an ex-cop, having had to leave the police after a misdemeanor. She now conducts investigations for a lawyer named Pierson. It is carnival time in Châlons-sur-Saône, but a teenage girl is found murdered in the Saône river – a crime that has similarities with other unsolved murders.

While Catherine and Pierson try to persuade the families to pressure the police to reopen these cold cases, Chief Inspector Jean-Pierre Renaud from the serious crime squad sets out in pursuit of the killer. The dead teenagers of the Saône, seemingly straight out of a folk tale where girls are eaten up and mothers howl their grief, illuminate this angry and vengeful novel with their electric beauty.