When a lifeboat with no identifying marks drifts to the shore near the small town of Ystad, carrying two corpses aboard, Police Commissioner Kurt Wallander does not yet know that this is the first link in a chain of mysterious incidents and international complications. This chain will lead the Swedish policeman to the grim streets of Riga in 1991 and make him a direct participant in a historical drama—complete with surveillance and chases, murders, and the search for a missing folder of compromising material. And, after finishing his second investigation, Wallander will suddenly realize that he has fallen in love—seriously, not by accident.