THE CHARACTERS
Martin Servaz,
40, police captain in the South West of France, divorced, solitary, a tad misanthropic, father of a rebellious teenager, perfectionist, obsessed with a nearly noxious sense of duty, confronted with a more and more violent and crepuscular society, with his inner demons and with an evil that is more and more intimately connected with our daily life.
Younger, he wanted to be a writer. He became a cop in order to reopen the case of his mother’s death, after his father’s suicide; but he doesn’t see life and the world just like a cop: more like a poet, a philosopher and a survivor.
Not at ease with the modern world, he likes: books, Latin quotes, classical music (Mahler’s), his daughter; he doesn’t like: incompetence, injustice, idiocy, sport on TV, consumer society, new technologies, the sceptics, social climbers, hypocrites, crooked, servile, liars, know-it-all, speed and firearms.
From the snow buried summits of the Pyrenees mountains to the urban jungles, from wooded hills of the South West region to the political and financial spheres, from a disturbing mental institution to a small university town that cultivates elitism, arrogance and cruelty; Servaz fights against nonstandard criminals, terrifying secrets, forces often far bigger than he is; his inner demons never letting him be.
Confronted with all too real nightmares, he doesn’t hesitate to plunge body and soul deep into investigations that bring him at the edge of the abyss. Because, in a certain way, Servaz, a human being far too humane, tackles something a lot stronger than he is.
Vincent Espérandieu
30 years-old, second in command and friend of Servaz. Even though they are only ten years apart, Vincent belongs to the next generation: multimedia, cyber culture, image and sound. Geek, mangas and comics reader, fan of indie rock, he’s married to the seductive Charlène Espérandieu, towards whom Servaz feels attracted despite of himself. He is at the same time perfectly complementary and the exact opposite of the boss he admires, without being devoid of a critical mind and humour.
Irène Ziegler
The lesbian policewoman, motorcyclist and maverick is at the same time the partner and the opposite of Servaz: she likes speed, risky sports, and doesn’t hesitate to pilot a helicopter or to use her firearm, and possesses a certain talent for IT. But like Servaz, she is tortured by the sight of the world’s sufferings, its trembling and dying; and, just like him, she has a painful past.
Cathy d’Humières
Prosecutor, fiftysomething, she is skilful, passionate about astrology, and a strong-willed woman. She generally supports Servaz’s initiatives, defends him several times, even when he is blamed by his hierarchy.
Margot Servaz
Martin’s daughter. Seventeen in “Iced”, where she’s having an affair with a married man of his father’s age; likes tattoos, piercings and leather jackets, she maintains with Servaz, a half knowing, half conflictual relationship. However, she also shares his strong likings for books and literature.
Samira Cheung
The team’s new recruit, the Franco-Sino-Moroccan (Chinese by his father, Franco-Moroccan by her mother) is eccentric, impulsive, smart and nonconformist. Like Vincent, she embodies a new generation of investigators. Gifted with an atypical appearance (an amazingly ugly face upon a perfect body), she has a liking for improbable outfits and a volcanic temper.
Julian Hirtmann
The former prosecutor of Geneva killed his wife and her lover during a stormy night in his villa by the waterside of the Lake Geneva, where he regularly organised orgies for the local upper class. For this occasion, the Swiss police discovered while searching through his files that it was dealing with the most dangerous serial killer of modern time. The Swiss is a true predator. Inside the red corridors of his mind, there are numerous doors. One of them opens onto a crypt where the memory of the forty women he killed is preserved; from a second one you can hear Mahler’s music playing, and more particularly the Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children), the one he was listening the day he killed his spouse. Strangely enough, he shares the same passion for the Austrian composer’s music with Servaz. This common passion will incidentally incites him to take a growing interest in the policeman and his family, to the great displeasure of the latest. Somewhere else, it is an identical cell to the one he’s living in the Wargnier institute – freezing corridors, slamming bolts, snow and cold weather behind the windows… Evil is not included- It is just dreaded and hated. Also, Hirtmann’s mind is one of those maze you venture into only to regret it later.