To begin with, a criminal tragedy: a child vanishes on his way down the stairs of the building where he lives (his mother took the elevator). No one ever saw him leave the building.
The police officer in charge of the investigation gets lost in the maze of the building and its surroundings. Which is how we are introduced to the inhabitants whom he suspects in turn – a handicapped man, a lesbian bookshop owner, a Chinese writer and more.
But what we are reading turns out to be a long-ago event told in a manuscript sent to different publishers, including André Martel, who is leading his own investigation alongside the fictional police officer’s. Martel has received in the mail a book with yellowing, uncut pages, which the manuscript he had been planing to turn down is an updated plagiary of. The plot thickens: the envelope is postmarked 1934. Who is this forgetful mail carrier? Could it be the one we see holding a child’s hand at the end of the book?

In other words, the author has multiplied spatial and temporal trails to draw us into the secret arena of this strange affair. By incorporating up-to-date elements like scientific cloning processes and sophisticated computer use into his fiction, he decomposes this tale of disappearances with exceptional brilliance, bringing us true and timeless entertainment, renewing our sense of the “marvelous” in the light of our own era’s problems.
A suspenseful story that will brilliantly satisfy both detective-story readers’ voracity and the acuity of the voyeur who hopes new technologies will bring practical solutions to our fantasies of immortality.