Isabelle Arbaud, as acerbic as she is ambitious, is determined to provoke a revolution in the elitist world of luxury brands. She has poached her rival’s most talented perfumer in order to invent an irresistible scent that will catapult her upstart fashion house to the head of the pack.

Someone out there doesn’t want her to succeed. The investors who bankroll her efforts keep dying in circumstances which are, to say the least, suspicious. One is run off the road. Another is found shot in the head.

Franck Guerin catches the case. A noxious cocktail of jealous rivalry and ill-concealed contempt awaits him. As other killings follow, however, he begins to wonder whether the real explanation for what is happening lies elsewhere – with an enigmatic homeless man who hovers on the periphery of each crime.

Confronted with multiple suspects, all of whom seem intent on pulling his strings, Franck has to tread carefully through an investigation which throws a dark light on the gilded city of Paris.