A deranged assassin has gunned down fourteen women students in Montreal. Celebrated actress Madeleine Blais is haunted by a sense that somewhere out there, where her filmed image roams so freely, someone is determined to kill her too. Her old friend and lawyer, Pierre Rousseau, can do nothing to shift her growing despair. So when on Christmas morning she is found hanging in a barn close to her grandmother's cottage in the small Laurentian town of Ste-Anne, the obvious verdict is that Madeleine's depression has driven her to suicide. Only her grandmother's unshakeable belief in Madeleine's love of life induces the police to launch a murder investigation.
As the police begin to conduct their inquiries, Pierre decides to take things into his own hands: he trusts neither the canny Montreal detective called in by the mayor nor the lazy police chief. But when certain intriguing facts about Madeleine's past unfold, it emerges that Pierre himself has secrets to hide and, until he confronts them, the mystery of Madeleine's death will remain forever unknown.
