Annika Bengtzon is back at Kvällspressen’s Stockholm offices after three years as the newspaper’s Washington, DC correspondent. One afternoon, a young woman is found dead behind a nursery school in a Stockholm suburb. In the editorial offices of Kvällspressen they sense a serial killer, but Annika dismisses it as a wild fantasy. As the murder spree in Stockholm continues, Annika is dragged into a violent hostage situation that shakes both Europe and East Africa.

An intruder brutally murders an entire family, and newspaper reporter Annika Bengtzon must fly there to report on the case. Upon arrival, she discovers that a fifth family member is unaccounted for. Soon, the killers are found, but they too have met their demise. Amid a culture weighed down by drug smuggling and money laundering, Annika must try to find the missing girl before it’s too late.

Police officer Nina Hoffman finds her fellow officer David Lindholm naked on his bed with bullets through his head and stomach. His traumatized wife, Julia, rambles on about a woman entering the house, killing David and running off with her son, but all the evidence seems to point in Julia’s direction. Annika Bengtzon covers the case and is drawn in headfirst when she sees that Julia is about to be falsely charged.

For the first time in her career, investigative reporter Annika Bengtzon is covering the glamorous Nobel Prize Dinner, traditionally held in Stockholm’s City Hall. But when gunshots suddenly break out, Annika gets caught in the middle of an intricate drama with links to international terrorism, global pharmaceutical corporations, and Alfred Nobel himself.