The dead of winter
It is Christmas Eve in Ste-Anne-de-Beaulieu. Madaleine Blais is a beautiful actress whose spirit of freedom has been crushed by the recent massacre of feminists in the local University. Pierre Rousseau, a handsome lawyer and Madeleine's ex-husband, is impatient for her to arrive in the neighbourhood so that he can tell her how much he still loves her. But Madeleine is hanging from a noose in her grandmother's barn and Pierre's confession is too late. Driven by despair and a conviction that this is not suicide, Pierre begins his own investigation into a case which leads him to memories he would rather forget, and a rigorous self-examination that persuades him that he is not, perhaps, the innocent ex-husband.