"A story as bone-chilling as the air his characters breathe…” A cryptic message left next to a charred corpse in the middle of Reykjavík leaves police worried they have a gang war on their hands. Across town Detective Grímur Karlsson investigates a missing girl from a nice suburban family and gets far too close to the truth for his own good. It becomes clear the two cases are connected and Karlsson doggedly pursues the trail that leads from junkies on the seedy streets of Reykjavík all the way to the very top of Icelandic society.