Something terrifying is happening all over Oslo: celebrities are turning up dead in the most macabre of situations. A talk show host is found with her tongue cut out, a politician crucified with a copy of the Koran stuffed inside of her, a literary critic stabbed in the eye. It's clear that the killer is sending some sort of message-but what is he trying to say?

Police Commissioner Adam Stubo and his wife, profiler Johanne Vik, both exhausted by the arrival of their new baby, are reluctant to join the investigation until it becomes totally necessary. As Stubo leads the inquiry, Johanne stays at home with the child, finding herself haunted by a pattern she remembers from her FBI stint years before, a time she's tried hard to put out of her mind. But as time seems to be running out, she must confront the demons of her past in order to stop the killer from completing this twisted series of murders.