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.

A man is raping women after having met them through ads on public noticeboards. At first this seems like an easy crime to solve for Martin Beck and his colleagues but they soon discover that somebody's motivations are far more complex.

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.

A brutally battered woman, Monika, manages to flee from her home with her two children. Later, the body of a dead man is found in the same house. The murder was preceded by an assault; bloodstains found in the kitchen correspond to Monika’s DNA.

A small girl is found dead in a deserted underground cellar. She has been dead for some time but there is fresh food for her. Who is she?

Former sports minister John Vedén disappears and it quickly becomes apparent this is connected to his addiction to gambling.

A famous Swedish lawyer is brutally murdered in his apartment. Martin Beck and his team find a clear murder motive. Hansson had a good chance of winning a case against a multinational company. But it appears Hansson was not completely honest and had several links with the underworld.

Beck gets a call from a colleague who's in Stockholm for an art auction. He was outbid by a woman who was later found dead in his hotel.

A teenage girl is found by her parents brutally raped and murdered in the woods. It's now up to Beck and his team to catch the criminal.

Two girls are hit by a train and killed instantly. Was it murder or a double suicide? Martin Beck and his team must answer the question of whether the pressure and intimidation faced by these young women in their everyday lives led to their deaths.

A paparazzi photographer is found dead, his apartment ransacked. Was the motive for the murder revenge, blackmail or something even more sinister?