An inexplicable death. A hunted ex-cop. A desolate working-class city.

Étienne Rozier, a former police officer turned lobbyist, has an adulterous liaison with a journalist. Sometime that night, she is murdered. If Rozier can't find the killer himself, he knows he'll get blamed for her death.
He has no choice but to go underground and take over the investigation she was conducting among the working poor, behind the scenes of the textile industry. His immersion in this unfamiliar scene leads him to a town he thought he'd never see again, linked to a past he'd preferred to deny: Elbeuf.