A small girl dies of a genetically inherited brain condition and an ageing pervert is killed in a squalid basement flat in Reykjavik, the latter a case to which dogged detective Erlendu is assigned. His investigation, at times, takes him back to crimes thirty years in the past and into a sordid Icelandic underbelly of deprived urban estates, impoverished rural communities, marital infidelity and drug addiction. An atmospheric, genuinely different, murder investigation/puzzle with some truly left field touches.