The Sufia Elmi case left inspector Kari Vaara with a scarred face, chronic insomnia, a constant migraine, and a full body count's worth of ghosts. Now it's a year later, in Helsinki. Kari and his beautiful American wife, Kate, have relocated here at her urging but it's a city where Kari has only bad memories. He is working the graveyard shift in the homicide unit, with a team that resents him as an overpaid Lapland hick, and a brilliant but egomaniacal...

Entreated by a desperate mother whose daughter, a young woman with Down syndrome, has gone missing while seeking employment in Finland, Kari Vaara pursues leads through Helsinki's high-class clubs to the darkest circles in underground trafficking.