A photojournalist's obsessive quest for the truth about the first expedition to Mt. Everest leads him to search for an esteemed climber who went missing.

He invents puzzles. He’s committed body and soul to his work and needs silence to be able to concentrate. She is an accomplished pianist and can’t live without music. She must prepare for a competition that could change her life. They are going to be forced to coexist without seeing each other.

In industrial Lyon of the early '50s, a widowed bar-owner listens to radio crime serials, reads detective magazines, and grieves for her daughter, killed two years earlier in a mineshaft accident. Consumed by her loss and unwilling to face the truth, the bar-owner becomes suspicious of the grim patrons in her drab tavern, seeking someone to blame as she contemplates revenge.