One hot summer night, Aix-en-Provence is aflutter with news that controversial author Val re Barbier, who once shared dinners with French presidents and all-night drinking bouts with rock stars, has moved into La Bastide Blanche, a grand house left empty for decades. But Val re's ideas of a peaceful retirement are quickly dashed. Rambunctious neighborhood children, a fast-talking gossip of a housekeeper, and a rival novelist filter through the home at all hours of the day--and by night there are unseen visitors with more sinister intentions.

While Antoine Verlaque investigates Val re's sordid history, his wife and partner, Marine Bonnet, questions why the estate was abandoned in the first place--and what they both find raises more questions than answers. Is Val re imagining the ethereal cries that fill the bastide at night? Is he losing his mind? Or have these ghosts returned from Val re's checkered past to haunt him?