An American woman is found murdered in Ystad. She has visited an internationally renowned photographer in Ystad, and her husband suspects her of infidelity. Kurt Wallander digs deeper into the woman’s background and her husband, as he believes that there is more to the case than meets the eye. The solution turns out to come from far outside of Sweden.

The Ystad Police finds a boat in Ystad harbour resembling a slaughter house. There is blood everywhere, but no bodies.

Soon there after a dead woman’s body floats ashore. One of the clues in the investigation leads to Oskar Ung, an old love of Linda Wallander. Their previous relationship hinders Linda's work with the case, and Kurt demands that she leaves the investigation But that turns out to be easier said than done. Old love never rusts.

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.

Ystad is experiencing a rapid increase in high profile robberies against armored transports. Where cars are set on fire, highways are blocked and large sums of money disappears. Isabel and Pontus, the trainee police officers, happens to be in the right place e at the right time and enter into a high speed Car chase that ends with Pontus benefiting hostage.

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.

A guest playing chorus of young women are successful at the premiere of a rural church outside Ystad. As a member, 18-year-old Miranda Dahno, disappear without trace from the school where the choir live in called the police soon. At first, suggesting that most of Miranda's absence voluntary - but soon found tracks that indicate the contrary. The exciting quest for both victim and perpetrator leads Kurt Wallander, police aspirant Isabell, and their colleagues against several persons who have been standing near Miranda

When Manfred Stjarne is stabbed to death outside the Brada cider factory his wife Claire has inherited - suspicion falls on Polish worker Jan Kowalski,with whose wife Manfred was having an affair but Jan is found hanged - later evidence suggesting foul play. Benjamin Wilkes,an ex-psychologist who helped Manfred select redundancy candidates,is killed in the same way as Manfred,putting disgruntled ex-Brada employees in the frame but a third slaying implicates a former patient of Wilkes,who has connections to the Stjarne family. A newly loved-up Isabelle and Pontius start to fool around whilst on surveillance,taking their eye off the ball and allowing this suspect to confront Claire.

Corrupt businessman Filip Pasolic stands trial for bringing illegal workers into Sweden and using them as slave labour. Wallander is injured by a car bomb intended for Kristina,who is prosecuting Pasolic and she is given police protection. At the same time pressure on the illegal Lithuanian work force to re-build Ystad's recycling centre in time for it to get an E.U. grant results in two men being killed,one of whose little sister,Natalia,sees construction manager Zoran bury the corpses. She goes to the police and implicates Zoran but takes off again with Zoran in pursuit. Wallander can link Zoran to Pasilic and needs to find him before he gets to Natalia in order to strong-arm him into testifying against Passilic. He also has to dissuade Katarina from resigning as,due to witness intimidation,the case is going against her.