Robin Denoyer

As a heat wave brings a Marseille neighborhood to a boil, three roommates gleefully meddle in the lives of their neighbors from their balcony. Until a late night drink turns into a bloody affair.

Marianne Vauban is an outspoken investigating judge with surprising methods and disarming sincerity. Accompanied by Captain Pastor and her clerk Yves, Marianne must draw on all her experience, sagacity, and empathy to investigate complex cases in astonishing worlds. But one case is particularly close to her heart: the murder of a prostitute ten years ago. She promised the victim's son that she would get to the bottom of this murder.

A seaside resort in the middle of winter, with its abandoned beach bars and rain-battered alleys, can easily flank the drone. Refugees on the top floor of a building in La Grande Motte, Carole and Richard Lazure have zero morale: swindled by their tax advisor and badly defended by an incompetent lawyer, they lost their business, their house and no longer even enough to buy the essentials. The eruption into their life of a childhood friend of Richard, a talkative talker with questionable dating, could be a game-changer - or make their situation worse.