St Cyr and Kohler, safely returned from Avignon and the Madrigal case, barely have time to draw breath before they are poking around in the darkened restaurant of the Gare du Lyon looking into a missing shipment of honey. The signals coming down from high are ominous in the extreme ¿ important interest are involved, and it is clear that they must exercise extreme caution. Why honey? Because a beekeeper in Belleville has been murdered; the new widow has connections she would rather not go into, and before long the ramifications of this case stretch all the way to Switzerland ¿ and Stalingrad, graveyard to Hitler¿s war effort. The Gestapo don¿t care whose side St Cyr and Kohler are on if they¿re going to be poking their noses where they don¿t belong even if Kohler is one of their own ¿ and neither do the SS or the Milices, the French secret police, if possible even more dangerous than their German counterparts.