Two patrolling cops stumble on to three criminals who have just stolen large amounts of explosives, and are killed in cold blood. Martin Beck and his team must now work day and night to find out who the killers are and what they are planning to do with the explosives before it's too late. Meanwhile, Gunvald Larsson who was a close friend of one of the murdered cops is ignoring all rules in his quest for revenge.

A man is found dead, stabbed to death with a knife. The shocking thing is that his face has been removed. After questioning his wife who described the marriage as happy also told that a mysterious foreign man knocked on their door the day before the murder. Beck and his men are given the case.

A Greek restaurant owner is brutally tortured and killed. Beck and his team investigate, and are drawn into a world of smuggling, threats, and violence.

An Asian woman is found dead in the water of Stockholm's archipelago. She has been murdered, and everything indicates that she was a prostitute. Meanwhile a series of break-ins has occurred on an island outside of Stockholm. Suddenly a retired old man is also found dead in his own yard. Now Beck has two cases to solve and they both point in the same direction.

Martin Beck, Gunvald Larsson and Alice Levander investigate the mysterious murder of an accountant that was found shot to death at the airport parking. At the same time a reporter receives a package from an anonymous source, with information regarding the embezzling of funds that should have been used for fixing up nuclear reactors. When the reporter contacts Beck, his home gets blown up by a bomb.

Mother of an autistic boy is found murdered in her home. The boy holds the murder weapon, covered in blood.

A series of grisly murders where the victims faces have been removed by acid starts to turn up around Stockholm. Detective Martin Beck and Gunvald Larsson are once again drawn into the darkness.