Ove Bakkerud, newly separated and extremely disillusioned, is looking forward to a final quiet weekend at his summer home before closing for winter. But, when the tourists leave, less welcome visitors arrive and Bakkerud's cottage is ransacked by burglars. Next door, however, there is an even more shocking discovery - the body of a man who has been beaten to death. Police Inspector William Wisting has witnessed grotesque murders before, but the desperation he sees in this latest murder is something new.