Balthazar

Balthazar is having a blast on an ice-driving circuit, a reckless pastime he's enjoyed since his life was upended seven months ago. But on his flight back to Paris, several passengers have convulsions after being poisoned, and the killer is on board. With a plane that threatens to crash and an explosive encounter with a cop he"ll have to work with, can Balthazar ensure a safe landing?

While Balthazar is fending off questions from his psychologist, who wants him to open up about his traumas, he's called in on a case. A human foot has been found by a dog in a Parisian suburb. After recovering the victim's entire body, Camille is notified that a second victim has just been reported—but his head is chopped off. Who's behind these savage attacks on seemingly unrelated victims?

As Balthazar kills time by hacking into the police radio, 6-year-old Anaïs is abducted from her room in the middle of the night. Who could have preyed on the innocent girl? The child molester just released from prison? Or a high-school chaperone recently spurned by Anaïs"s sister? With the girl's life at stake, Balthazar and Camille must act quickly.

Due to Balthazar"s antics, a colleague is assigned to assess him: coldhearted Olivia Vésinet. He's thus overjoyed to be called to a crime scene, if only to get away from her. Three teenagers have been beaten to death in a car scrapyard, and the main suspect is a man whose house the kids robbed. But why would the man slaughter them for stealing trinkets—unless the trinkets held a dreadful secret?

Trying his best to avoid Olivia Vésinet, who recently snatched his job, Balthazar delivers a lecture at the medical school, with Eddy and Fatim in attendance. Suddenly, he's taken hostage by a student named William, who claims his father was wrongly accused of killing his mother. Balthazar must do all he can to uncover the truth, while Camille and the SWAT team get ready to intervene.

When documentary filmmakers arrive to report on the Forensic Institute in Paris, the mood there turns positively chilly. Eddy and Fatim are no longer speaking, Camille hates being filmed, Delgado hams it up, and Vésinet and Balthazar are openly at war. While everyone settles scores, a man"s skeleton is discovered, whose disappearance echoes the vanishing of another man, exactly one year earlier.

The war festers between Vésinet and Balthazar. When she sends him to investigate a grisly case of illegally slaughtered cows in a village he hates, things don't get any rosier. Fortunately, Camille tags along to help. Balthazar will need all the support he can get, because this village is where he grew up, and from which he fled, never to look back.

Everything has gone awry for Balthazar. Charged with double homicide by Camille and Delgado, he sits in a cell, handcuffed and devastated. Is he really the monster they say he is? What are these memories that keep nagging him? To find out what is happening to him and who is persecuting him, Balthazar has no choice but to escape and become a fugitive.