A team of cops from the Paris crime squad is investigating at 36, quai des Orfèvres. At the head of the group is Commandant Françoise Galliot, an authoritarian woman who is cold on the outside but fragile in reality. Under her command are Captain Jean-Louis Scandella, her second-in-command and one of her closest friends; Commandant Michel Lemarchand, the Galliot group's procedural officer; Captain Paul Moreau, Scandella's best friend; Lieutenant Alexandre Siskowski, the youngest among the men and also the most sensitive; and Lieutenant Caroline Tessier, a young woman from an aristocratic background and a new recruit.