The Crimson Rivers

A mutilated corpse is found during a forest hunting party and it seems the victim was the heir to a family fortune. As Niemans and Camille question his immediate circle, his sister is also targeted.

Niemans and Camille are put on the track of a curse that is rumoured to be placed on the sons of the Von Geyersberg family. But are the rich clan really the victims or is there a killer among them?

In a wine-growing region at harvest time, a battered corpse is discovered under rubble when a vault collapses during the renovation of a chapel, destroying a fresco. Was it an accident or foul play?

When Niemans obtains X-ray images of the damaged frescos, they provide further insight into the case, but does a missing fragment from the biblical scenes portrayed hold the key to the killer?

When two men discover the severed hand of a child, Niemans and Camille find the local police distracted by the case of a serial killer armed with a rifle. Can they find clues at a children's home?

Two more people are shot dead, in the cemetery: a married couple who took in foster children. But a quotation from an ancient tale about an ill-fated group of children on a memorial provides a clue.

Niemans witnesses the death of a monk named Brother Guillaume who utters the words 'the sword and the snake' with his dying breath and has the palm of his left hand burned to hide a mysterious tattoo