A year of bones of grave-dirt relentless work. Of mummified corpses & chanting priests. A year of rape suicide sudden death. Of friendship too. Of desire. Of love...A year unlike any other he has lived. Deep in the heart of Paris its oldest cemetery is by 1785 overflowing tainting the very breath of those who live nearby. Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte a young provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it. At first Baratte sees this as a chance to clear the burden of history a fitting task for a modern man of reason. But before long he begins to suspect that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to his own.