Retired cartographer Birgitta Medberg is exploring an old pilgrimage route when a surreal apparition catches her attention: burning swans flying over a forest lake. This is her last observation, as the person responsible for the apparition kills the witness and buries her body in the forest...

Two bodies wash up on the Swedish coast in a rubber dinghy. Since they are apparently Latvian drug couriers, the Ystad police involve an officer from Riga in the investigation. When Karlis Liepa identifies the dead men as former informants, he feels responsible for their murder...

Together with his partner Vanja, Wallander has bought a cozy house by the sea. The moving boxes have not yet been unpacked when his dog Jussi finds the buried remains of a woman's body in the front garden. The detective actually wanted to focus more on his private life...