Justine Dalvik lives alone in a large, beautiful, but gloomy house on the shore of a picturesque lake. She was born and raised in this house. When she was three years old, her mother died suddenly in front of the little girl. The father, the owner of a successful confectionery company, married his beautiful secretary Flora a couple of years later. From that day on, Justine's life turned into a series of insults, trials and pain. Anyone who comes too close to Justine is doomed to death. What's really going on? Who is responsible for the death of people associated with this lonely woman? What's wrong with it? Perhaps the key to the mystery is hidden in the past, in Justine’s childhood? Perhaps the unknown and dangerous that lies dormant in the human soul has awakened and is rushing to come out?.. The scary, dark, pathological in Frimansson’s novels looks like something normal and ordinary, and this literally sends chills down the spine. It starts shaking from the very first pages, although everything seems to be so smooth, calm, even sleepy, but the hair is still moving from horror. The Swedish Academy of Detectives named the novel the best detective book of the year in 1998, and a few years later the American magazine “Foreword” (“Prologue”) named the book the best in the “translated novel” category.