One of France’s worst wartime villains, Paul Touvier is an overtly anti-Semitic traitor who terrorises his own countrymen. As a leader of a pro-Nazi paramilitary police force, he relishes his job of hunting down ‘enemies of the state’ and, murdering Jews and resistance fighters alike, earns himself the nickname the ‘Hangman of Lyon’. A devout Catholic, Touvier escapes retribution after the war by turning to the church for help. By 1988, France’s most notorious war criminal is still at large, and a high-ranking French investigator, Jean-Louis Recordon, is given the job of hunting him down.