When a mysterious figure in a black mask and black robe will show up at the Halloween party in Three Pines, and in Armando Gamach and the other inhabitants of the village, he first wakes up curiosity. But the next morning the same character appears again, this time in the village green. In the climbing November cold, in the rain and snow, there is only a day and stares in front of him, still and silent as a black exclamation mark. And the next day again. Gamache suspects that the unknown has brought some dark intention to the village, but he cannot only wait and hope his growing concerns will not be fulfilled. Until the corpse appears. Armand Gamache is struggling with increasing crime, corruption in his own ranks, and especially with the expanding drug trade, which is the root of all evil. But it fights in a war that is lost in advance. Or not? Investigating the murder in Three Pines will put a dangerous game in motion in which everything can lose everything, including its own pure conscience.