1891. At dawn on the Boulevard Montmartre, the body of a barefoot young woman wearing a lavish red dress is found brutally murdered. That same day, a single red shoe is delivered to the Elzévir Bookshop, owned by amateur sleuth Victor Legris.
Victor and his team of booksellers feel compelled to investigate. When they discover a corpse in a wine barrel, and then a dancer strangled in her apartment, a treacherous trail unfolds through the gleaming nightclubs, bustling cabaret bars and dark alleyways of Montmartre.