Every morning Håkan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. Then, one day he fails to come home. Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved but Håkan's son is engaged to his daughter Linda.

A few months earlier Håkan was eager to talk to Kurt about a controversial incident from his past. Could this be connected to his disappearance? When Håkan's wife also goes missing, Wallander is determined to uncover the truth but the investigation will force him to look back over his own past, as he comes to the unsettling realisation that even those we love the most can remain strangers to us...