A horse breeder is found dead, and almost everything indicates that he has been kicked by his horse. But the post-mortem shows the opposite, the horse breeder had been hit to death and that's a case for Kurt Wallander. The neighbors confirm that he lived alone, but he had visits from a mysterious woman several times. Surprising evidence on the farm shows a whole new side of the horse breeder and somewhere, in the beautiful state of Skåne, there's a dark world that doesn't want to see the daylight.

An American woman is found murdered in Ystad. She has visited an internationally renowned photographer in Ystad, and her husband suspects her of infidelity. Kurt Wallander digs deeper into the woman’s background and her husband, as he believes that there is more to the case than meets the eye. The solution turns out to come from far outside of Sweden.

Carina Olsson provides the Malmo police information on drug deals comitted at her restaurant. She does this after being promissed anonymity for the Police. 2 days later Carina is found shot. The execution is witnesed by Carina's 7 year old daughter Cleo. Cleo manages to escape and is in hospital in a state off shock.

The murder happens on the ourscirts of Ystad, and is thus asigned to Kurt Walander and his collegaues. With the connections to Malmo the Ystad polie recieves help from Frank Bork (Malmo Police). For PSI Stefan Lindman, who allready displayed signs of mental instability, working with Frank Borkg leads to a round trip to hell. Frank teaches Stefan what it means to stand up for your collegueas, no matter what.

A sniper is Ystad in horror and his victims are persons connected to a jewel heist. Wallander soon understand that there are links to a criminal organization. In a failed attempt to shoot the last two that are linked to each other's coup Wallander's colleague, Pontus into a race to the death. Wallander is now forced to conduct an investigation in which the shooter list has been expanded with a name - Pontus Young.

When Manfred Stjarne is stabbed to death outside the Brada cider factory his wife Claire has inherited - suspicion falls on Polish worker Jan Kowalski,with whose wife Manfred was having an affair but Jan is found hanged - later evidence suggesting foul play. Benjamin Wilkes,an ex-psychologist who helped Manfred select redundancy candidates,is killed in the same way as Manfred,putting disgruntled ex-Brada employees in the frame but a third slaying implicates a former patient of Wilkes,who has connections to the Stjarne family. A newly loved-up Isabelle and Pontius start to fool around whilst on surveillance,taking their eye off the ball and allowing this suspect to confront Claire.