Arson is suspected when a house burns to the ground following a gas explosion and a man and a woman are found dead. Wallander and the Ystad police investigate and uncover an intricate web of lies, betrayal and secret love affairs.

When Manfred Stjarne is stabbed to death outside the Brada cider factory his wife Claire has inherited - suspicion falls on Polish worker Jan Kowalski,with whose wife Manfred was having an affair but Jan is found hanged - later evidence suggesting foul play. Benjamin Wilkes,an ex-psychologist who helped Manfred select redundancy candidates,is killed in the same way as Manfred,putting disgruntled ex-Brada employees in the frame but a third slaying implicates a former patient of Wilkes,who has connections to the Stjarne family. A newly loved-up Isabelle and Pontius start to fool around whilst on surveillance,taking their eye off the ball and allowing this suspect to confront Claire.

Corrupt businessman Filip Pasolic stands trial for bringing illegal workers into Sweden and using them as slave labour. Wallander is injured by a car bomb intended for Kristina,who is prosecuting Pasolic and she is given police protection. At the same time pressure on the illegal Lithuanian work force to re-build Ystad's recycling centre in time for it to get an E.U. grant results in two men being killed,one of whose little sister,Natalia,sees construction manager Zoran bury the corpses. She goes to the police and implicates Zoran but takes off again with Zoran in pursuit. Wallander can link Zoran to Pasilic and needs to find him before he gets to Natalia in order to strong-arm him into testifying against Passilic. He also has to dissuade Katarina from resigning as,due to witness intimidation,the case is going against her.