On a frosty January day in Bergen, private detective Varg Veum is visited by a prostitute whose friend has disappeared. Before her disappearance, something had unsettled her: she'd turned away a customer and returned to the neighborhood in terror. Shortly after taking the case, Veum finds the first body - and it won't be the last either. His investigation leads him into a dark subculture where corrupted idealism has had deadly consequences.