A shootout in a Stockholm suburb leaves two victims seriously injured. They hover between life and death at the Nobel Hospital, where Tekla Berg fights to save their lives. The police dismiss the incident as gang warfare, but a suspicious detective enlists Tekla's help to determine if something much more complex and sinister is at play.

And it seems it's only a matter of time before terror spreads throughout the entire city. Meanwhile, Tekla is informed that her mother's house in Dalarna county is to be sold at auction. The village of her birth hasn't crossed her mind for years, but now she decides to make one last visit.

Among the things left behind in the house is an enigmatic photograph, in which a ittle girl sits on Tekla's mother's lap at a party. Who is she? Can she help fill in the blanks in Tekla's photographic memory regarding her childhood? And what became of her?