She works at Norrköping Hospital, at the very bottom of the hierarchy: in the cafeteria, below the doctors, nurses and nursing assistants. But she dreams of one day becoming a writer, of moving away and reinventing herself. Carl Malmberg, an older, married doctor at the hospital, catches her eye. She begins an intense affair with him, though she struggles with the knowledge that he may never be hers. At the same time, she realizes that their attraction to each other is governed by their differences in social status. As her doubts increase, the revelation of a secret no one could have predicted forces her to take her own destiny in hand.

Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her. In these six interlocking stories, memories of unfortunate incidents from Maud’s past keep bubbling to the surface. Meanwhile, certain Problems in the present require immediate attention. Luckily, Maud is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands, even if it means she has to get a little blood on them in the process.

It’s been 14 years since Detective Inspector Embla Nyström’s best friend disappeared from a nightclub in Gothenburg. So she is stunned when she recognizes her voice on the phone before the call abruptly disconnects. Then she learns that a man has been found shot dead in one of the guest houses that he and his wife manage in rural Sweden. When Embla arrives on the scene, she receives another shock. The dead man is Milo Stavic, a well-known gang member and one of the last people seen with Lollo. The same night that Milo was shot in the guest house, his brother Luca was also killed. Why, after all these years, is someone targeting the Stavic brothers, and where is the third brother?

When a little girl disappears a few weeks before Christmas, suspicion falls on the last person she was seen with: the mentally disabled teenage boy who gave her a ride home after school. Complicating the matter is the fact that detectives can hardly get a word out of him. When a second child disappears and a police officer is found dead, tensions in the small town of Strömstad reach an all-time high. As Detective Inspector Embla Nyström hunts for the missing children, she can’t help but think of the case that has been haunting her for years: the disappearance of her childhood best friend. Could the incidents be linked?

Bombs fall over a Greek village during World War II, and a teacher takes her students to a cave for shelter. There she tells them about another war --- when the Greeks besieged Troy. Day after day, she recounts how the Greeks suffer from thirst, heat and homesickness, and how the opponents meet. Helmets are cleaved, heads fly, blood flows. And everything had begun when Prince Paris of Troy fell in love with King Menelaus of Sparta's wife, the beautiful Helen, and escaped with her to his homeland. Now Helen stands atop the city walls to witness the horrors set in motion by her flight. When her current and former loves face each other in battle, she knows that, whatever happens, she will be losing.

Ever since her father's untimely death, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late 80s, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father's ancient armchair. Over the course of her adventures --- or misadventures --- she will handle a crisis with a local celebrity who has her eyes on Maud's apartment, foil the engagement of her long-ago lover, and dispose of some pesky neighbors. But when the local authorities are called to investigate a dead body found in Maud's apartment, will Maud finally become a suspect?

In her 40s, childless and living alone, Karolina Andersson feels adrift after the breakup of a long relationship. She finds fulfillment in her work, and when she starts advising a new postgraduate student, she is struck by his confidence. He claims to have discovered new materials from a female artist working around 1900 that could change the history of Swedish visual arts. Karolina soon finds herself embroiled in a complex game with both emotional and professional consequences.

In this final installment of the Irene Huss investigations, the gang warfare that has been brewing in Göteborg is about to explode. A member of a notorious biker gang has been set on fire --- alive. Even in a culture where ritual killings are common, this brutal assault attracts the attention of both Irene’s unit and the Organized Crimes Unit. Anticipating a counterattack, the two units team up to patrol the lavish party of a rival gang, but that doesn’t stop another murder from occurring just outside the event hall. Furthermore, someone has planted a bomb under Irene’s husband’s car. Somehow, the gangs are always one step ahead of the police. Someone is leaking information. But who? Irene’s life depends on discovering the answer.

A woman is found dead in a cemetery. Just a few days before her death, the victim had received a flower, an unintelligible note, and a photograph of herself. Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues on the Violent Crimes Unit have neither clue nor motive to pursue, and when similar murders follow, their search for the killer becomes increasingly desperate. Meanwhile, strange things have been going on at home for Irene: first the rose bush in her garden is mangled, then she receives a threatening package with no return address. Is Irene being paranoid, or is she next on the killer’s list?

The body of a teenage girl is found in the woods, followed by a mummified body bricked up in a chimney on a demolition site. Then a second young girl is found, wearing what appears to be the other half of the sexy lingerie set recovered near the first body. Fearing the two cases are linked and that the killer may strike again, Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues embark on a desperate hunt that takes them deep into a shadowy world of anonymous online predators and insecure teenage girls on a deadly quest for affirmation.