Commissaire Léon Duval’s ninth case takes him into the past, this time into the hinterlands of the Côte d'Azur, where the effects of the Malpasset Dam failure in the late 1950s can still be felt today.
Judge Dussolier is shot dead on the steps of the district court in Grasse. Duval knew the judge well; they had worked together to arrest the gangster boss Cosenza. All signs seem to point to Dussolier’s assassination being an act of revenge by the latter, but Cosenza denies everything. Duval believes him because he finds out that the judge had asked for the “Malpasset” file on the dam disaster of 1959, in which 423 people lost their lives. Apparently, the judge had wanted to reopen this case. Is that why he had to die? Duval finds himself confronting unsavory entanglements between the state and judiciary – and very real threats to himself and his family.
