In a remote Swedish farmhouse, an elderly farmer has been bludgeoned to death, his wife left to die with a noose around her neck. Before the old woman dies, she utters the word foreign, which may be the only real clue the police have to go on. And they need to work fast. The press has reported the dying word, and white supremacists have threatened a nearby refugee camp, vowing to take justice into their own hands. Recently divorced, overweight, drinking too much and not sleeping enough, and maybe failing for the beautiful but married prosecutor Anette Brolin, Police Inspector Kurt Wallander doggedly leads the investigation into a crime for which there seems to be no reason, or certainly not one Wallander is sure he wants to know.

The murder of a farming couple in Sweden unleashes a wave of xenophobia when it is learned that the woman's dying words were "foreigner." The case is given to Inspector Kurt Wallender, a lover of opera and booze. Part crime story, part look at the attitude of Swedes to immigrants.