Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon'the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him 'the bitter neighbor from hell'.

Arvid Falk is a young and idealistic government worker who always wanted to be a poet. When Arvid is fired, he starts afresh and sets out to explore every corner of the Swedish society, and the hypocrisy and corruption he finds shocks him.

One January morning at 5am, Inspector Wallander responds to what he believes is a routine call. When he reaches the isolated farmhouse he discovers an old man has been tortured and beaten to death, and his wife lies barely alive beside his shattered body. The woman supplies Wallander with his only clue: the perpetrators may have been foreign.