This novel is based on the massacre by the SS of a small town in France during World War II, called Oradour-sur-Glane. Some of the perpetrators were French citizens - Alsatians drafted into the SS. They were put on trial in 1953 for taking part - under duress, it was claimed - in the horrendous killings and destruction of that peaceful village. Upon the order of President Charles de Gaulle, the town was kept as the Nazis had left it and is a national monument. Professor Eugène Desfosseux, a historian and self-taught ventriloquist, conjures amid the ruins figures from deep into his past and records the interviews and interrogations in a tale that epitomizes what this or any other war crime might encompass - including his own daily life of pleasures, romance and memories inflamed to a vengeance that would destroy his life's work.