Unofficially investigating a suspicious suicide, Inspector Erlendur becomes increasingly unsettled by the unsolved cases of two young people who went missing decades earlier under circumstances tied to his own past.

During the Christmas rush, the Santa at a grand Reykjavík hotel is stabbed, and there is no dearth of suspects. Inspector Erlender must deal with his difficult daughter, pursue a possible love interest, and untangle a long-buried web of malice and greed to find the murderer.

When the water level of an Icelandic lake suddenly falls following an earthquake to reveal a skeleton half-buried in its sandy bed, Inspector Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Oli look into the long-unsolved disappearance of a young, left-wing student during the Cold War.

A man is making a crude leather mask with slits for eyes and mouth, and an iron spike fixed in the middle of the forehead. It is a 'death mask', once used by Icelandic farmers to slaughter calves. He has revenge in mind. Meanwhile, with Detective Erlendur absent, his colleague Sigurdur Oli is in the spotlight. A school reunion has left Sigurdur Oli dissatisfied with life in the police force. Iceland is enjoying an economic boom and young tycoons are...

"When a [homeless man] he met regularly on the night shift is found drowned in a ditch, no one seems to care. But his fate haunts Erlendur and drags him inexorably into the strange and dark underworld of the city"--Amazon.com.

In a flat near Reykjavik city center, a young man lies dead in a pool of blood although there are no signs of a break-in or any struggle. A purple shawl, found under the bed, gives off a strong and unusual aroma. A vial of narcotics found in the victim's pocket among other clues soon lead Erlendur's colleagues down a trail of hidden violence, psychological brutality and of wrongs that will never be fully righted.

When a skeleton is unearthed at a Reykjavik building site, Inspector Erlendur and his colleagues set out to unravel a complex decades-old crime that may have ties to his own troubled family history.