In a small town on the Swedish coast, the owner of a garage is found dead, his lower body crushed by a car driven over him repeatedly. The murder investigation is led by Inspector Christian Tell, a notorious lone wolf…although he is finding himself increasingly romantically involved with a female reporter. As she s a witness in the case, their relationship is complicated enough; things get even more difficult when aspects of the case begin to remind her of someone she knew who disappeared ten years before.

A decade earlier, Maya Granith is living at a college for troubled teenagers after escaping her shattered home and neurotic mother. When an older student begins to take an unusual interest in her, things go tragically wrong.

Can Inspector Tell separate the personal from the professional and solve the case?