After two Eastern European corpses are washed ashore on a raft in Ystad, Wallander travels to Latvia on the hunt for the killers. Thrown into a cold, alien world of police surveillance and lies, Wallander soon finds himself entangled in a web of corruption with no-one to trust.

A friend of Wallander's daughter comes begging for his help but then disappears. Meanwhile, an elderly woman's body is found cremated in a shallow grave. Killed by a seemingly religious obsessive, Wallander must catch the culprit before he strikes again.