A phone call to a harassed lawyer from an old girlfriend, mentioning a murder that is to be committed, has her frightened out of her wits, and she hands it over to Cnut, who meets the woman, only to see her shot dead in front of him, before she can speak.
Her assassination, and the ransacking of her house, proves to him that what she knew has to be has to be serious, and that the murder victim she had no chance to name would doubtless involve someone important.
But who is that someone?
To give him a chance of finding out the name of the victim, Cnut takes on the enormous task of checking every one of the deaths that occur in the Greater Oslo area.
Even so, the death of the man Marit Linden wanted to report would have escaped Cnut's widespread net, were it not for the sharp eyes of an ambitious junior police officer, who takes a call from a woman who is worried that her husband has not come home, and he passes that information to Cnut.
Lars Mandik, CEO of Endronis Pharmaceuticals, has died at his desk, certified as a heart attack by the firm's doctor, but instead of reporting the death, Rolf Kammers, the new and rogue deputy CEO has had the body placed in the firm's cold room, and made arrangements for it to be cremated early the next morning, intending to inform Mandik's wife only shortly before the cremation.
That fact alone, in Cnut's book, carries the stink of hidden motive, and instead, he has the body removed to the police pathology suite.
The autopsy confirms that Mandik was murdered.
Cnut knows where, how, and when the murder was committed, and almost certainly who committed it, but not why.
He is incensed that the murderer will get away with it, but it is only the first of a series of murders, where he knows who the killer is, but cannot find enough evidence for an arrest.
A dark organisation, with immense funding, is buying up major companies in Norway, and where the owner will not sell, he is killed or incapacitated, and the reason is cloaked in mystery.
The lives of Cnut and Ilse come under serious threat, but he does not give up, and finally works out the reason behind the murders.
He realises that attempting to use the police force to take the action needed to bring the guilty to justice would be the worst thing possible.
Not for the first time in his career, he has to cross the line no police officer should cross, and resort to extraordinary, unlawful measures to achieve his objective – measures that he knows are likely to lead to the loss of his career - and probably his life.
Can his plan lead to the destruction of the largest ever criminal enterprise in Scandinavia?
