In the UK, the title was changed to Tainted Blood when the paperback edition was released.

[3] The novel is at one level a fierce critique of the gene-gathering work of deCODE genetics: The body of a 70-year-old man who was struck on the head with a glass ashtray is found in a flat in Norðurmýri.

The only clues are a photograph of a young girl's grave and a cryptic note left on the body.

Detective Erlendur discovers that the victim was accused of a violent rape some forty years earlier but was never convicted.

It was directed by Baltasar Kormákur and premiered in Iceland on 20 October 2006 and in the UK on 12 September 2008.