Plot Summary:Olivia Rönning and Abbas el Fassi are affected by two different murders in two different cities, Marseille and Stockholm. They are each pulled into their respective cases, which are connected somehow. Customs agent Bengt Sahlman is found hanging dead in his home by his 17-year-old daughter Sandra. Olivia, just home from a long trip, passes Sahlman's home as Sandra comes running out of the house in panic. This becomes the prelude to Olivia's involvement in young Sandra's fate, which resembles Olivia's own: both of her parents are now dead. It is soon determined that the suicide was a murder, and the case lands on Mette Olsätter's desk. A blind woman is found brutally stabbed to death in Marseille. When Abbas sees a picture of the murdered woman, Samira, in a French newspaper, he recognizes the love of his life. Abbas decides to go to Marseille to find out what happened to her. He asks Tom Stilton, who has contacts in the Marseille police, to accompany him.
A customs officer is found dead at his home and the police initially believe that he has taken his own life, but when a connection to a murder in Marseilles is discovered, Olivia Rönning and Tom Stilton are once again drawn into a complex murder mystery.