The unlikely duo Detectives St-Cyr and Kohler are back in Paris after Madrigal, a strange and dangerous case in Avignon. But immediately they return, they are investigating a missing shipment of honey. The signals coming down from high are ominous - important interests are involved. And why honey? Because a beekeeper in Belleville has been murdered; and the new widow has connections she would rather not go into. Before long, the ramifications of this case stretch all the way to Switzerland, and to Stalingrad, graveyard to Hitler's war effort...