To celebrate his 60th birthday, Werner Gyllenmark holds a party at his beach hotel and invites his family, employees and even his arch-enemy, Egil Grip. But the event ends abruptly with an accident that shocks the entire town – and slowly but surely, explosive secrets emerge that some people will go to any lengths to keep hidden.

Empathetic, meticulous and relentless – the only thing to escape Larvik detective William Wisting in his hunt for Norway’s most notorious criminals is a happy family life. And when two mysterious deaths interrupt Wisting’s Christmas, it is the beginning of a showdown with the deadliest killer of them all.