When the people of a small corrupt town find out a secret inspector will be arriving shortly they panic, something which a lazy civil servant takes full advantage of and lets them believe that he is that inspector.

A priest is shot outside a hotel in Ystad and is fighting for his life in hospital. Wallander has no clues to the shooter until he finds out that the priest was having an affair.

Sweden in the 1780s. At the court the nobility lords and ladies dance, love, intrigue and compete for the King's favor. To this Stockholm arrives Rutger Macklean, nobleman and an officer. With a notion of an extensive re-organisation of the agricultural lands and the farm properties.

Staffan returns to Svalöv, his childhood town. The visit becomes an odyssey of his memories with his friends Maria and Janne when they grew up in the 1940s. They spent their childhood reading about Indians, building a time machine with the crazy inventor Jöns and they learned how to kiss.