A corpse is found in a basement apartment in Norðmýri. It’s the body of an older man, a hell of a monster. Somebody has clearly done away with him. Erlendur, the police chief at the criminal investigation department in Reykjavik, and his colleagues are given the case. It soon comes to light that the murder victim has left a trail of rapes and terror behind him across Iceland. But his victims are however more than the women who were raped. The monster’s descendants and their offspring are given a tragic fate.