She is found all by herself, frozen to death, far from the road, in an international area on the French-Swiss border, where neither country has police jurisdiction. Suspicious, wouldn t you think? That s what strikes David Rousseau, a best-selling writer of murder novels, who needs a plot for his new book. Finding himself in the snowbound hamlet of Mouthe, he settles in and begins to poke around.
Her name is Martine Langevin. She had become known as Candice Lecoeur. She was barely 20. A photographer spotted her pumping gas at the local station, shot her for a pinup calendar and launched her into a life of (limited) local fame. With her hair dyed blond and her lips bright red, she looks from some angles like Marilyn Monroe, and the photographers find those angles. Soon her portrait graces packages of the local cheese, and she s doing the weather on regional television.