Ragna Riegel is a woman of routines. She sits in the same seat on the bus every day on her way to her predictable job at a supermarket. On her way back to the house she has always lived in, she visits the same local shop. She feels safe, until one day she receives a letter with a threatening message scrawled in capital letters. Ragna’s carefully constructed life beings to unravel into a nightmare. Isolated and threatened by an unknown enemy, she must use all her means to defend herself. When the worst happens, Inspector Konrad Sejer is called in to interrogate Ragna. Is this unassuming woman out of her depth, or is she hiding a dark secret?

A gruesome tableau awaits Inspector Konrad Sejer in the oppressive summer heat: a woman and a young boy lay dead in a pool of blood near a dank trailer. The motivation behind the deaths of Bonnie Hayden and her five-year-old son, Simon, is mysterious. Who would brutally stab a defenseless woman and her child? In a parallel story, another mother, Mass Malthe, navigates life with her adult son, Eddie. It’s a relationship some would call too close, since Eddie’s father, a man he obsesses over, abandoned them many years ago.

Carmen and Nicolai failed to resuscitate their son, Tommy, after finding him floating in their backyard pond. When Inspector Skarre arrives on the scene, Carmen reports that Tommy, a healthy toddler with Down’s syndrome, wandered into the garden while Nicolai was working in the basement and she was cleaning the house. Skarre senses something is off with Carmen’s story and consults his trusted colleague, the famed Inspector Sejer. An autopsy reveals Tommy’s lungs to be full of soap.

On a wet night in November, Charlo Torp, a former gambler, makes his way through the slush to Harriet Krohn’s apartment. Certain that paying off his debt is the only path to winning his daughter’s forgiveness, Charlo plans to rob the wealthy old woman’s antique silver collection. The following morning Harriet is found dead, her silver missing, and the only clue Inspector Sejer finds is an abandoned bouquet.

Riktor doesn’t like the way the policeman storms into his home without even knocking. He knows he’s guilty of a terrible crime and is sure the policeman has found him out. But when the policeman finally does confront him, Riktor freezes. The man is arresting him for something totally unexpected. Riktor doesn’t have a clear conscience, but the crime he’s being accused of is one he certainly didn’t commit. Can he clear his name without further incriminating himself?

In this first novel of the Inspector Sejer mystery series --- available for the first time in English --- Eva and her young daughter, Emma, are walking by the river when Emma spots something floating in the water. It's the body of a man, and what's more, a man Eva recognizes. Inspectors Sejer and Skarre piece together the stories behind two unsolved murders. Does it all lead back to Eva?

Inspector Sejer is called to the hospital to try to figure out who was responsible for carrying out a sinister prank on a young couple. Later that night, he hears a knock at the door and receives a note that has him worried about what is to come. The postcard in question bears a short message: Hell begins now.

In the newest installment of the Inspector Sejer series, Sejer must determine why the corpses of troubled young men keep surfacing in local lakes.