A series of grisly murders where the victims faces have been removed by acid starts to turn up around Stockholm. Detective Martin Beck and Gunvald Larsson are once again drawn into the darkness.

While covering the annual Nobel Banquet for tabloid Kvällspressen, crime reporter Annika Bengtzon witnesses a spectacular murder right in front of her. Two people are shot, one of them the controversial Laureate in Medicine, Aaron Wiesel. Annika is the key witness and is bound by the police not to disclose anything she has seen. A terrorist group with connections to the Middle East quickly admits responsibility for the murder. International press is all over the story, as are the police.

David, an aspiring meteorologist, follows his late father's footsteps in the Swedish military. After stumbling upon what's left of his father's work, David sets off to a desert island in the Barents Sea - the one place which may hold the truth about his father's passing. Confronted by strange lights in the dark, eerie radio disturbances, and a hidden cave, David begins to question whether or not he's really alone on the island. Suddenly, a female voice calls out over the otherwise silent radio - a stranger trying to reach David. Little does he know, his search for truth is about to descend into a much larger conspiracy.