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.

The Swedish IB (Information Bureau) agents Henry Malm and Richard Ramberg travel to the Finnish-Russian border in order to receive a KGB agent who wants to defect.

The leader of a small crime syndicate meets, for the first time in years, with his teenage son in a Chinese Restaurant. Slightly awkwardly, he explains that he hopes his son to take over his business.