[1][2][3] In the dedication of the book, Ernir calls it "my farewell to my beloved friends—and to the world I love so passionately" ("kveðja mín til ástvina minna—og umheimsins sem ég ann svo heitt").

At the start of the novel he has recently lost his wife Elínborg to cancer and recovered from major injuries caused by a fall on the day of her death.

Björn explains to his childhood friend Bíbí (Jónína), a bookshop owner whose husband has left her, that he cannot sleep alone as he is afraid of the dark: specifically of the elves from the elf-hill next to his family home that try to break into his house to get out of the cold.

He convinces Bíbí to take a job as his personal secretary and to sleep alongside him, and thus they begin a passionate relationship that absorbs most of their attention for the course of the novel (and implicitly beyond).

Under the pretext of a terrorist threat to the American Embassy in Iceland, Collins subsequently organises a meeting in Paris with Möller, Björn, Bíbí, two Scandinavians, and Vladimir Vitkosky who as well as being Russian's representative to Europol is known to the reader both as an oligarch and as a mafia member.