Some 40 years later, he is pursued by David Manenbaum, a hitman who is under orders to kill Brossard and leave a printed statement on his body proclaiming the assassination was vengeance for the Jews executed in 1944.

Brossard for years has taken refuge in sanctuaries in southern France within the Traditionalist Catholic community, appealing to long-time allies who have operated in great secrecy to shield him and provide him with funds.

Livi forms an alliance with the similarly dedicated Colonel Roux, a senior French Gendarmerie investigator, and the pair initially suspect that Manenbaum was part of a Jewish assassination plot.

Brossard's allies, including certain priests and a wartime colleague who has risen into a position of great power within the French government, are feeling the heat from the relentless questioning of Livi and Roux.

In the novel and film, the fictional Brossard is based on Paul Touvier, a member of the Milice, a paramilitary police force of the Vichy French regime during World War II who ordered the execution of seven Jews in 1944.

After the war, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death in absentia, but with the aid of right-wing Roman Catholic clergymen, who provided him refuge in safe houses and monasteries, Touvier avoided capture.