For readers, it all begins with when and how a young woman is killed and where her body is hidden. She lived in a small village and is quickly reported missing. She was last seen in a post office talking to her distant neighbour (she bought eggs from him), who may have given her a ride home. Or only slowed down at the bus stop where she waited, then drove on, as he claims.
The reason why Martin Beck (MB) and Kollberg travel to southern Sweden for a missing person case, is the neighbour, an `import' and loner, known for his excellent smoked fish. And the convicted killer of US tourist Roseanne during a river cruise in 1964. Having served his sentence, he is unhappy seeing MB, who caught him after many months of gruelling investigations, and being a suspect again.
What follows is painstaking police work in the scenic, peaceful province of Skane, with competent local colleagues like Mansson (known from earlier S&W books) and Njöld, who knows everyone in his biotope and is a great cook. A perfect base for MB and Kollberg, except that they are tailed by the press. One of the newshounds is another killer MB collared after months of research, again years ago, described in "The Man who went up in Smoke"...
A shooting in Skane with one policeman dead and two wounded, prompts a manhunt towards Stockholm and becomes a second storyline. Kollberg is recalled. MB, left alone in Skane, with various local inputs and help from his staff in Stockholm, pins down the killer. For readers to find out how.
A top S&W book, well paced and with believable characters. Later, Henning Mankell and his hero Kurt Wallander destroyed S&W's idyllic portrayal of Skane province in his own series of 10 police procedurals, which began in Swedish, in 1991.