Бюро тёмных дел

Autumn 1830, in a feverish Paris still in shock from the Revolutionary Days of July, the government of Louis-Philippe, new king of the French, tries to curb a divided but virulent opposition. Valentin Verne, a young inspector of the morals service, is transferred to the security brigade founded a few years earlier by the famous Vidocq. He must elucidate a series of strange deaths likely to destabilize the regime. Because the progress of science, mixed with the esotericism then in vogue, inspires a new type of criminality. Passionate about chemistry and medicine, cultivating a taste for the mysterious and the irrational, Valentin Verne knows how to decipher their codes. Appointed by the prefect to head the bureau of occult affairs, a special service responsible for tracking down these modern criminals, he will give proof of his extraordinary skills. But who is this solitary policeman, really, obsessed with tracking down an elusive criminal known only by the nickname of the Vicar? Who is hiding behind this angelic face where a disconcerting ferocity sometimes shines through? Who is the hunter, who is the game? In the lineage of the great detectives of History, from Vidocq to Lecoq via Nicolas le Floch, a new hero is born: Valentin Verne.