The tango king Harry Koivikko was found dead six years ago in a sleazebag motel, with a knife is his back. The biggest manhunt in the county faded away without results. Jussi Vares gets a phone call from a down-and-out journalist; the informant tells Vares he knows the murderer. Then the journalist disappears without a trace and Vares has to face the biggest challenge of his career. To add insult to the injury, an old acquaintance Veikko Hopea gets his first prison furlough…
This very serious drama, based on a true incident, explores the unremitting labor which put a young mother living in rural isolation into the situation of being charged with having thrown her children down a well. Her husband is an unimaginative, work-obsessed man who cannot see that her constant hard work without any support or sympathy from anyone is driving the sensitive woman to consider suicide. When the loutish fellow discovers that his wife and three children are missing, he calls the police, and a manhunt begins. The police discover the oldest boy alive, and find that the mother tried to drown herself, but has survived. The two younger children remained missing.