A twelve-year-old boy runs into his local police station claiming to have seen a brutally dismembered corpse. Errki Johrma, an escaped psychiatric patient and known town misfit, was spotted at the scene before he disappeared into the woods. The next morning the local bank is robbed at gunpoint. Making his escape, the robber takes a hostage and also flees into the woods.

As the search for Halldis Horn's killer continues all fingers of suspicion point to Errki - except one. Errki's doctor refuses to believe that he could have committed such an horrific act and, for the first time since his wife's death, Inspector Sejer finds himself intrigued by another woman.

The second novel in the Inspector Sejer series displays all of Karin Fossum's acclaimed plotting and characterisation.