Paris, January 1943. The city is held tight in the grip both of Winter and of the Occupier. Jean Louis St-Cyr of the Surete Nationale has been teamed with Hermann Kohler, formerly a Munich cop, now of the Gestapo, with respect to all police investigations of the so-called "ordinary crimes." The team is assigned to investigate the murder of an eleven-year-old convent school girl.

At first the victim is thought to be the orphan heiress to a vast aviation fortune. Then it is discovered that the body, dressed in the heiress's clothing, is actually that of her best friend. Four schoolgirls have been murdered in the last five weeks by a serial killer whom the newspapers have dubbed the Sandman. Has he claimed another victim? And where is the missing heiress? Despite the opposition of Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, St-Cyr and Kohler must see that justice is done.