Inspector Huss is sent to Copenhagen, where all her contacts turn up in little pieces. Part of a human torso washes up near Goteborg in Sweden. It is so mutilated that gender is only established by DNA testing. A similar crime, now several years old, remains unsolved in Denmark. Detective Inspector Irene Huss is dispatched to Copenhagen to liaise with the police. Then a third corpse is discovered. The victim is a girl Detective Huss knew. She had been asked by the girl's mother to locate her missing daughter. A fourth victim, the son of the woman heading the Copenhagen crime squad, is also known to Huss. She fears the killer is tracking her, killing people with whom she is connected. There is even a suggestion that he or she is one of her colleagues.