Sebastian Bergman

"It begins with a call to the police. A fifteen-year-old boy, Roger, has gone missing, and his mother is worried. After a few days of careless delay, the local police department in Vasteras finally starts looking for the boy. Haraldsson - who would really prefer to be at home impregnating his wife - is assigned the task of organising a search. Then a group of scouts makes an awful discovery in a marsh, uncovering the horrific tragedy behind the boy's disappearance. The psychologist Sebastian Bergman, criminal profiler and one of Sweden's top experts on serial killers, is in Vasteras following the death of his mother, to settle her estate. Bergman lost his wife and daughter in the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 and has completely withdrawn from police work over the past few years. He is emotionally cut-off, not coping too well, and has relapsed into sexual addiction. But CID - which has taken over the case - needs his help. Sebastian Bergman finds himself, for the first time in a long while, drawn into a murder investigation. He becomes increasingly involved - but has his own highly personal reasons for wanting access to the police records. All the leads point toward the Palmlov school, the private school Roger attended. On the surface, it is an ideal environment for a young boy, but increasingly cracks begin to appear in its facade"