Hallgrim is still in hot pursuit of ex-KGB man Sergei Varsjinskij and Luka Ivanovitsj Budanov; a new face joins the team while the relationship between Marie and Hallgrim heats up.

A wealthy Norwegian businesswoman is found dead outside Hallgrim’s hotel and the team is led once more to Sergei Varsjinskij and an intricate money-laundering scheme.

In trying to find the truth about a batch of uranium that was seized by the Danish police, Hallgrim befriends a Chechen scientist in Oslo who has a sinister mission in life. 

Hallgrim and Marie attend a conference in Sweden where they locate the person behind the Lithuanian sex trade. A price is put on Hallgrim's head, and someone comes to collect.

After hovering between life and death, Hallgrim survives a knife attack. He and the team must now locate the perpetrator who is fighting to control the Balkan drug trade into Scandinavia.