The body of a young woman is found in a Stockholm hotel room. It appears that she has been strangled after a night partying with two young men, but the room was paid for using the credit card of a mugging victim whose alibi doesn't add up.

When a well-known crime boss is murdered by a sniper in front of his family, Beck and his team are challenged to discover which one of his many enemies could be responsible for the crime.

The bodies of two men are found buried in the woods and, despite persistent attempts, they cannot be identified. When another man is murdered the police discover new evidence which they believe links the murders to an Islamist terrorist cell.

An elderly woman dies in a hospital in Stockholm from what seems to be an incurable disease, but her son refuses to believe that it was the disease that killed her.