Kurt Wallander is called to a nearby rapeseed field where a teenage girl has been loitering all day long. He arrives just in time to watch her douse herself in gasoline and set herself aflame. The next day he is called to a beach where Swedens former Minister of Justice has been axed to death and scalped. The murder has the obvious markings of a demented serial killer, and Wallander is frantic to find him before he strikes again.,But his investigation is beset with a handful of obstacles-a department distracted by the threat of impending cutbacks, the frivolity of World Cup soccer, a tenuous long-distance relationship with a murdered policemans widow, and the unshakably haunting preoccupation with the young girl who set herself on fire.