Enzo MacLeod, a Scot who is teaching forensics at Cahors in southwest France, confidently bet that he could use his expertise to crack seven notorious murders described in a book on cold cases by Parisian journalist Roger Raffin.

Enzo has in fact solved the first two crimes. But the third is far from his mind at the moment. He's just been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and now it appears he's the target of someone intent on destroying his credit, his relationships, and getting him arrested for murder. It's enough to bring out his Scottish stubbornness. In this Job-like situation, it serves him well.

Establishing a safe house to protect his loved ones, besieged now as it were, he sets to work. Are his woes connected to the digging he's done into the brutal murder of a rent boy in a Paris apartment sixteen years ago? What further remnants of evidence can he review? Can he stay alive long enough to catch the long-hidden killer?