There’s François Maurey, in his forties, a former radical who now runs a computer business and who has developed a new product much sought after by the Americans. There’s his wife, Caroline, who, after twenty-five years of marriage, is wondering about the meaning of her life. There’s his daughter, Marianne, who doesn’t want her parents’ problems to become hers.
And then there’s Rolland, a highly ambitious head engineer who’s a pirate and traitor; Charles, the old friend, who works freelance for a competitor; Bovary, a Marxist cop heading an investigation; Florence, a femme fatale, spy, or little girl victim, a model employee who enters François’s life, causing havoc.