Fresh from maternity leave Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside - the victim of a frenzied knife attack with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him. At home with their baby daughter Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work until the chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma's case? Once again the team at West Iceland CID have to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma's newfound happiness.