Two executioners execute some Nazi war criminals in Germany in the end of World War Two. At the end of the ninety a Swedish
older, Herbert Mollin, police retired, enthusiastic to the puzzles and to dance tangos is found dead in his solitary and cold house of Härjedalen, a village in the north of the Scandinavian country. In the snow are discovering some steps of tango and in his room a dummy. Giuseppe Larsson is the police responsible for the case that will receive the aid of the one that was companion of the murdered, Stefan Lindman, a sick man of cancer that decides to pass the days that can be the last of his life ascertaining who may have been the murderer of his colleague.
A too curious neighbour, an old friend of the deceased, a community of nostalgic of Hitler, the beautiful daughter of Mollin, a German Jew that emigrated to Argentina, some methodical police officers, the past that yields accounts to the present, snow, deserted highways, cabins lost in forgot mountains, a trip to Scotland, a small hotel, World War Two, the pursuits, the secrets of family and the painful memories. All this will accompany us during the four hundred fifty-seven pages of this book, of comfortable reading and well enough written, as opposed to other books of this kind, that too often presents a poor prose and vacuous. Henning Mankell, the author, is known by being the creator of the inspector Kurt Wallenger, famous personage of Swedish fiction