A private clinic on the Côte d’Azur, a professor of medicine full of himself because of his fame. He is untouchable; no one dares to challenge his power and glory. However, behind the façade, there are plenty of secrets and rather unpleasant things.
He has a daughter, his success, his pride. The father-daughter relationship is ambiguous, though it does not devolve into incest. Professor Armand Reynier sees his world start to crack with the assault on his daughter Maud.
His past will resurface, his clinic where a child died following surgery, a blackmailer who seems to know everything about him, and the mysterious jogger who arrives just in time to save Maud from a rape. Everything is perfectly orchestrated, and the professor thinks only of his daughter and her safety. He indulges her every whim; spoiled child Maud is at the center of this novel where numerous twists will turn a victim into a culprit.
The blackmail, the threats, Professor Reynier does not want to file a complaint, but why? That is the whole intrigue of this novel. All the characters are implicated, none are truly innocent, and in the end, they are all to varying degrees guilty. Who was Professor Reynier?
The answer is in this work by Karine Giebel, revealing the hypocritical morals of the upper bourgeoisie, hypocrisy that certainly explains Maud’s drug addiction, the professor’s daughter who has fallen in love with Luc, an impossible love whose reasons will be uncovered in the ultimate twist of this book, both a crime novel and a social study with an unflinching portrayal of this wealthy society that believes itself to be above the law, shielded by the immunity their connections and money provide. A great moral lesson in a world where, sadly, corruption is the dominant rule.
Thierry Jan, writer
