Early in the morning around New Year’s in 1990 a farmer in Scania sees a harrowing sight. His neighbours have been murdered in the night. During this inexplicaple act the murderers have used horrible torture. The only lead which the police has is a word which was uttered by the old lady before she died: “Foreign”. When this is leaked to the media, anti-immigration forces begin to harass refugee camps. These forces become quite an enemy to the police while they search for the unknown killers. The book was chosen as the best Swedish crime novel in the Swedish Novel Academy in 1991. The same year the book also won the Glass Key from the Scandinavian Crime Society as best novel.