When the skeletons of four young women are found buried in woodland North of Copenhagen, ambitious and headstrong DCI Katrine Ries Jensen and Thomas Schaeffer, a reclusive and cerebral forensic psychiatrist, are drawn into a perilous hunt for a serial killer – a killer who kills according to a pattern, but one which is at first impenetrable. For both Katrine and Thomas, the challenge becomes one of discerning the human being behind the monster. For only when they come to understand the fantasies and trauma that drive him are they able to confront him.