Death, death, death!' Ellen screamed, hitting the steering wheel so hard her palms ached.

Crime reporter Ellen Tamm hasn't been the same since the Lycke case a few months ago. It is now August and all summer she has been on sick leave, shut in her apartment and spinning out of control. Under pressure—and threats—from her parents and her employer, TV4, she agrees to head home to her family farm, Örelo, to try to get some help and get a handle on her mental health.

On her way to Örelo, Ellen stops for petrol in the little community of Stentuna where she stumbles upon the news of a murdered woman, her body discovered in the small hours of the morning. The woman isn't from the area, and no one seems to know who she is or what she was doing in Stentuna. Her name was Liv.

Attempting to distract herself from her own dark past and the mysteries that plague her, Ellen starts to investigate Liv's death. She finds herself drawn into a web of family secrets, lies, and betrayal. Reports keep surfacing of strange behaviour among the children of Stentuna. And then awful things start to happen to Ellen. Someone, or perhaps many people, are trying to silence her.

All the while, Ellen is trying in vain to escape the questions that continue to press in on her and crowd her mind: questions about her sister, the lake, and what really happened that terrible day.