Jean-Christophe Grange is a recognized master of the European detective and thriller, whose great literary fame began with the thriller “Crimson Rivers” (1998), which was soon brilliantly filmed. The main character, brilliantly played by Jean Reno, the taciturn policeman Pierre Nieman, who has a corrosive analytical mind, but a quarrelsome character, immediately fell in love with the audience. And twenty years later, Granger decided to resurrect the legendary commissioner in his new novel. In the heart of the Black Forest, in the Black Forest, the last hunt began. But when the horn sounded, it turned out that it was not a deer or a boar that had been killed, but Jurgen von Geyersberg, a young German aristocrat, owner of the surrounding lands and a huge fortune. The investigation is being conducted by investigators from Germany and France, the famous Commissioner Pierre Nieman plays for the French, as well as his student and colleague Ivana Bogdanovich. Experts have the victim's body at their disposal. But there is no head or entrails. And no traces. It soon becomes clear to the police that this is just the beginning. An unknown criminal has opened a hunt not only for representatives of the Geyersberg family, but also for the detectives themselves, and behind the chain of strange murders looms an ominous shadow - the shadow of the beast.