What does a woman do when her husband's charged with the frenzied killing of her father and her best friend? She calls in Stella Blomkvist to to investigate - however unwelcome the truth could turn out to be. Smart, ruthless and with a flexible moral code all of her own, razor-tongued lawyer Stella Blomkvist is also dealing with a desperate deathbed request to track down a young woman who vanished a decade ago. It looks like a dead end, but she agrees to pick up the stone-cold trail - and she never gives up, even if the police did a long time ago.

Then there's the mystery behind the arm that emerges from an ice cap, with a mysterious ruby ring on one frozen finger? How does this connect to another unexplained disappearance, and why were the police at the time so keen to write it off as a tragic accident?Brutal present-day crimes have their roots in the past that some people would prefer to stay forgotten. As Stella pieces together the fragments, is she getting too close to the truth and making herself a target for ruthless men determined to conceal secret sins?