It is autumn and the people in the otherwise peaceful small town Ystad settle down. But for Kurt Wallander broken idyll of a young woman burned to death in a cornfield. Soon after hitting a serial killer with a series of increasingly brutal murder. What is the relationship between a retired attorney general, a successful art dealer and an ordinary petty thief? Why scalp killer his victims?

A young woman is killed and robbed in her apartment. The trail leads to her indebted ex-boyfriend, a bouncer. In the investigation, the police officer Pontus notices that his colleague is nervous. Isabell carries around a dark secret: one of the suspects, in this case, has a means of pressure against her in her hand. Commissioner Wallander has a great deal on the capable young policewoman, whose loyalty to her fatherly superior is subjected to a hard test of endurance.

The seemingly random murder of a jogger in woodland and the detonation of car bombs in central Ystad are but diversions to busy the police whilst a security van are robbed of 15 million kroner. Isabelle and Portus witness this and give chase but are attacked by the criminals and hospitalized. Given the security firm's meticulous contingency plan Wallander suspects a leak from the inside and aims for Micke Sterner, a compulsive gambler and the only staff member to know the encoded transit schedules. But some private sleuthing by over-worked Svartman, who has found the robbers' den, and Wallander's suspicions of an ex-cop turned security officer with connections to the firm provide the real break-through.

When a woman is murdered outside her restaurant in front of her eight-year-old daughter, Wallander and his team link the death to a restaurant mafia.

Kurt Wallander investigates the disappearance of a father under suspicious circumstances, as events at the local high school appear to be linked to the missing man's daughter, who recently committed suicide.

After the murder of a motorcyclist, an investigation reveals that bikers are being used as drug couriers from Denmark to Sweden and that the killing was part of a cartel power struggle.

Based on the book by Henning Mankell (Sweden), this story takes place in Mozambique and is about a young boy, Nelio, who loses his entire family during a time of civil war. A wounded Nelio is found by a baker in the capital Mapouto; refusing medical treatment, the boy instead asks for sanctuary so he can tell his terrible tale. This he proceeds to do, starting with how the fighters arrived in his village and slaughtered many, to his captivity, his escape and his teaming with other orphaned street urchins to become their leader in survival.