There is a church in the glittering frozen wastes of Northern Sweden. Inside, a sacrifice: the body of a man — slashed to pieces, hands severed, eyes gouged out. The victim's sister, Sanna, is first to discover the body and immediately finds herself the police's only suspect. Terrified and confused, she calls on a friend: hot-shot city lawyer Rebecka Martinsson. Rebecka hardly wants to return to Kirana — the small town she fled in disgrace years ago. But Sanna is frightened and she needs a loyal friend to clear her name. Someone not scared to dig deep and find the true killer. Yet Rebecka is not especially welcomed into the closed-lipped community of Kirana. She might know the town, the people and how suspicious they can be of strangers. But she has still to find out how dark the town's secrets have become in her absence.