When the Big war started, the 2nd of August 1914, Louis is one of those first mobilized. He has to leave Marie and his village in Corsica for the plains of the Marne where the fights rage. On the front, he is a stretcher-bearer and crosses the battlefield, at night, in search of the wounded. One day, while the trench is sorely lacking water, he is chosen to go to a well situated halfway between the French and German territories in what they called "no-man's-land". There, he finds himself in front of a German soldier who has also come too stock up.

Jack Palmer is a Paris-based detective with a huge ego. Ange Leoni is a rebel native of Corsica whose location can't be pinned down by even the most dogged of detectives. Approached by an obscure, small-time attorney and charged with the seemingly simple task of locating the missing Leoni, gifted gumshoe Palmer accepts the job under the assumption that it will be the easiest money of his professional career. But this superstar sleuth is about to find out just how mistaken he was...