Uma série de terríveis assassinatos em que os rostos das vítimas foram removidos pelo ácido começa a girar em torno de Estocolmo. O detetive Martin Beck e Gunvald Larsson são mais uma vez atraídos para a escuridão.
A man is raping women after having met them through ads on public noticeboards. At first this seems like an easy crime to solve for Martin Beck and his colleagues but they soon discover that somebody's motivations are far more complex.
Martin Beck, Gunvald Larsson and Alice Levander investigate the mysterious murder of an accountant that was found shot to death at the airport parking. At the same time a reporter receives a package from an anonymous source, with information regarding the embezzling of funds that should have been used for fixing up nuclear reactors. When the reporter contacts Beck, his home gets blown up by a bomb.
An Asian woman is found dead in the water of Stockholm's archipelago. She has been murdered and everything indicates that she was a prostitute. Meanwhile a series of break-ins has occurred on an island outside of Stockholm. Suddenly a retired old man is also found dead in his own yard. Now Beck has two cases to solve and they both point in the same direction.
A man is found dead, stabbed to death with a knife. The chocking thing is that his face has been removed. After questioning his wife who described the marriage as happy also told that a mysterious foreign man knocked on their door the day before the murder. Beck and his men are given the case.
