December 1959: Captain Jacques le Garrec, a former detective and French Resistance hero, returns to France in disgrace, traumatised after two years of working in the army intelligence services, and accused of a brutal crime. As le Garrec awaits trial in the tiny Breton town where he grew up, he is asked to look into a disturbing and unsolved murder committed the previous winter. A local teenage girl was killed and her bizarrely mutilated body was left on display on the heathland. Le Garrec's investigations draw him into the dark past of the town, still haunted by memories of the German Occupation.