Crime writer Erika Falck, wife of Detective Patrik Hedström, is shocked to discover a Nazi medal wrapped inside a child's dress stained with blood, and a wartime diary among her late mother's possessions dating from the World War II era.

Haunted by childhood memories of a cold, detached mother, she decides to investigate,[1] unwittingly endangering her husband and newborn baby.

However, she becomes distracted by the discovery of her late mother's wartime diaries and a Nazi medal and consults with a local World War II historian.

[6] It soon becomes a masterfully interwoven plot of neo-Nazi Swedish politics, old friends with old secrets, ex-wives coming back into play, and a poor Patrik trying desperately to balance his role as a new father and his desire to help his fellow detectives.

By way of a side-theme, the local police station's chief, Mellberg is talked into reluctantly adopting a stray dog, finding that this leads to a meeting with another dog-owner (and salsa teacher) who happens to be the mother of his new detective, Paula Morales, both of whom are immigrants to Sweden from Chile.