Spring has finally arrived, filling the Swedish countryside with sunshine and flowers after a long, dark winter. The beautiful weather is lost on Detective Investigator Malin Fors, though, troubled as she is by the unexpected death of her emotionally distant mother and what it might mean for her own fragmented and dysfunctional family. But when an explosion rocks the town square, killing two young girls, leaving their mother fighting for life and terrifying the entire community, Malin has no time to address her family’s uncertain future.

The discovery of a brutally stabbed body floating face down in the moat of Skogså Castle chills one town to the bone. Malin Fors is already struggling to keep her life together following the recent murder attempt on her teenage daughter, Tove. Now, as this case forces Malin to delve deep into her town’s history and her own family’s past, the secrets she uncovers threaten to drown her, too.

A teenage girl is found naked and bleeding in a city park, without any recollection of what has happened to her. Another grisly discovery is made on a lakeside beach, and the whole town is on edge. A serial killer walks among them, and while families withdraw to protect their young, Detective Malin Fors must uncover the secrets behind these crimes, potentially putting herself and her own family at risk in the process.

Malin Fors is the most driven and talented superintendent who has ever worked at the police force in her small, isolated town. In her job, she is constantly moving through the borderland between life and death. She navigates her colleagues through crime investigations so gruesome that they make the darkest of nightmares seem like fairy tales.