A church in the glittering frozen wastes of northern Sweden. Inside, a sacrifice: the body of a man - slashed to pieces, hands severed, eyes gouged out.

The victim's sister, Sanna, is the first to discover the body and immediatety finds herself the police's only suspect. Terrified and confused, she calls on a friend: hot-shot city lawyer Rebecka Martinsson.

Rebecka doesn't want to return to Kiruna - the small town she fled in disgrace years ago. But Sanna is frightened and she needs a loyal friend to clear her name. Someone not scared to dig deep and find the true killer.

After years away, Rebecka is not welcomed back into the closed-lipped community. She might know the town, the people and how suspicious they can be of strangers, but she has still to find out how dark the town's secrets have become in her absence.