The First Fingerprint

In an underwater cavern off the coast west of Marseille are the first human engravings known to man. Among them is a crude drawing of a three-fingered hand, which has long puzzled archaeologists. Is it a hunting signal? A mystic sign invoking the spirits? Or is it, as many believe, evidence of ritual mutilation in a Shamanistic world? " The Hunter" evidently believes the latter. Driven by inhuman voices to maim and kill, he severs the body parts of his victims - and signs his savagery with a print of a three-fingered hand. Commandant Michel de Palma, of the Marseille murder squad, heads to the university in Aix-en-Provence to investigate further, but the clique of pre-history professors he encounters are as hard to unravel as the meaning of the cave-drawing itself. As he gets closer to the truth, the group of academics close ranks. Slowly and alone, de Palma begins pursuing a mystery that dates back to the Ice age. The First Fingerprint introduces a policeman as polished as he is brutal, as charming as he is deceptive. Michel de Palma, called " the Baron" by his colleagues, knows the dark underside of the city of Marseille as do none of his rivals. But his enemies are everywhere: in the crime-infested sinks of the suburbs; in the sleek and squalid bars of the old quarter; even in the police ranks themselves.