The heat is scorching. The city is silent. But the water never forgets.







A relentless heat wave has Marseille in its grip, as in the oldest quarter Le Panier A disturbing discovery is made: In a Roman cistern, buried for centuries, floats the body of the city's building director – resting on ice-cold spring water, surrounded by fresh lavender and pieces of traditional Marseille soap. A branded mark is emblazoned on the dead man's wrist: 1720 .







Commissaire Pierre Marquanteur and his pragmatic partner François Leroc are faced with a mystery that reaches deeper than the subterranean catacombs of the port city. When, shortly afterward, a powerful shipping magnate is brutally executed in the brine of a cargo container, the terrible suspicion intensifies: A ruthless perpetrator is carrying out, step by step, the sentences of a three-hundred-year-old chronicle from the days of the Great Plague. He is judging the modern-day heirs of those elites who once exploited the plague to enrich themselves immeasurably.







Under political pressure and a swirling rumor mill, Marquanteur delves deep into the forgotten network of veins beneath the cobblestones of Marseille. But the avenger is always one step ahead – and his next verdict strikes at the heart of the shadowy powers… A highly suspenseful, atmospheric Provence thriller about historical guilt, deadly corruption, and the incorruptible memory of a city.