In the depths of a Norwegian winter Vilhelm Thygesen discovers a frozen young woman in his garden. She has been stabbed to death. A well-known left-wing lawyer and no friend of the police, Thygesen is now 63, given to wearing designer clothes and taking life easy.
Stribolt and Vaage, the police officers assigned to the case, assume the victim was a drug courier from Eastern Europe. Shortly afterwards a young motorcyclist belonging to a biker gang once represented by Thygesen is killed in a motorcycle accident. His bike has been tampered with.
The police set out to establish the connection between the frozen woman, the awkward customer who found her body and the bikers who are terrorising the neighbourhood.