A dark-skinned young boy is found dead, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The boy''s Thai half-brother is missing; is he implicated, or simply afraid for his own life? While fears increase that the murder could have been racially motivated, the police receive reports that a suspected paedophile has been spotted in the area.Detective Erlendur''s investigation soon unearths the tension simmering beneath the surface of Iceland''s outwardly liberal, multi-cultural society while the murder forces Erlendur to confront the tragedy in his own past.