Roland Barthes one of the twentieth-century's towering literary figures is knocked down in a Paris street by a laundry van It's February 1980 & he has just come from lunch with Francois Mitterrand who is locked in a battle for the Presidency Barthes dies soon afterwards History tells us it was an accident But what if it were an assassination? What if Barthes was carrying a document of unbelievable global importance? That document was the key to the seventh function of language
- an idea so powerful it gives whoever masters it the ability to convince anyone in any situation to do anything Police Captain Jacques Bayard & his reluctant accomplice Simon Herzog set off on a global chase that takes them from the corridors of power & academia to backstreet saunas & midnight rendezvous What they discover is a global conspiracy involving the President murderous Bulgarians & a secret international debating society In the world of intellectuals & politicians everyone is a suspect & who can you trust when the idea of truth itself is at stake?