Former police officer Harry Hole must return to Oslo when the son of the woman he loves is arrested for murder. In order to prove the boy's innocence, Harry sets out on a dangerous investigation that takes him into the world of the most virulent drug to ever hit the streets of Oslo (and the careers of some of the city's highest officials).

Deeply traumatized by the Snowman investigation, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong’s opium dens. But when a series of women are murdered --- after all spending the night at the same isolated mountain hostel --- he agrees to return to Oslo to investigate the brutal case.