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.

Eleven year old Johannes is found dead in a crevice. The postmortem shows that the boy has been sexually abused and beaten to death. Detectiv Stefan Lindman is a member of the same shooting club as the victims father and they are also friends. Therefore he becomes the one that has to tell the father what has happened to his son (Johannes). When the father finally understands what has happened he demands that Stefan personally gets the one responsible. Stefan is since a previous case being accused for abuse, because the internal investigation Stefan has to go on paid vacation, and he is not allowed to continue his investigation. But because of personal issues he continues the investigation anyway. He has a dark secret, a secret that has the answer to why he came to Ysta in the first place.

A motorcycle rider is found murdered by the police, and the trail leads them to a local MC Club. The Club uses other riders to smuggle drugs across the Öresund bridge. Wallander believes that players outside of the MC club are trying to claim the local drug market when all clues indicate that the victim was one of the couriers. Only when Wallander's colleague Isabel gets violently assaulted in her home does he understand the lengths they will go to to achieve their goal.

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.

Isabelle and Pontus pass out as police officers but he is dismayed when she says she wants to put their affair on hold in order to travel.Her plans are cut short when she joins the investigation into the death of her friend from the gym,Therese,murdered by burglars. Therese's loser ex-boyfriend Fabian is in debt to very heavy people and offers them her jewels but is he the killer? Violent boxer and ex-con Patrik Lippowski,a former lover of Isabelle,who fled from him and changed her name from Rebecka to Isabelle to escape him,is another suspect,but he is murdered with Isabelle's gun. In finding the killer Pontus's love for Isabelle is put to the test whilst Wallander advises Katarina when her bitchy teen-aged daughter starts stealing.

A young woman arrives at the Ystad police station to report her mother missing. Soon afterward the mother is found near the family home. Ystad police end up in a situation that constantly stirs up new topics, while police suspect that the father is the culprit. On a personal level Martinsson becomes increasingly worried about Kurt as he is starting to get more and more problems with his memory.