The death of an unknown American in Stockholm, though tragic, should be an open-and-shut case, a simple suicide. But when Superintendent Lars Martin Johansson begins to delve beneath the layers of corruption, incompetence and violence currently strangling the Stockholm police department, he uncovers a complex web of treachery, politics and espionage. Johansson quickly realises that there is nothing routine about this little death as it quickly catapults him from mere domestic drama straight to the rotten heart of Sweden's government.