Scene of the Crime tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who becomes involved in a murder when he helps an escaped prisoner dispose of a dead body. The boy's actions lead to a chain of events that unravel a web of deceit, family crisis, and impossible love in the picturesque South of France.

After raising her daughter, one would think that Julie's life was rather full. However, she recently got an offer from the French consul to a mission in Pondicherry, India to teach her skills to Indians. She can only do this if she gets her high-school diploma, something she neglected to do earlier. The idea of this new post motivates her to rectify her youthful omission, and she goes back to school in Montparnasse. Just before classes are to start, her current boyfriend's condescending ways prove too much for her, and she breaks up with him, reacting to that by getting drunk. Thus, when she has to take the subway to school on the first day, being unfamiliar with the route and somewhat the worse for wear, she gets lost. Fortunately, she meets an elderly man, a retired musician for the Paris Opera, who is headed for the very same destination. The two form a relationship of mutual encouragement and support.

In the post-war Paris, a young Jewish boy whose parents were deported, met in the subway a well-off boy of the same age with whom he became friends. A second encounter with Max solitary character and rasping will mark him. With these two people the antipodes of one another he will reach adulthood.