When Alex is alerted to a brutal murder, she brings the temporarily suspended Vilhelm and her colleague Josef to the crime scene. The victim turns out to have connections to the digital university Howl, which investigates the role of men in a changing world. At the same time, the case is linked to an older investigation into the "Balcony Man", which brings Martin Beck back to the department.

Anna, a young and naive woman, moves to Knutby to become part of the free church congregation as a nanny, which to her seems like a warm and pious community. But soon the idyll that never existed crackles, and manipulation, power games, social exclusion, group pressure, brainwashing, fanaticism and both more and less religiously sanctioned left-wing chatter end in murder and grief.

The police is under heavy media pressure after fatally shooting a 14-year-old boy. A demonstration against the violence gets out of hand and the police have to take further blame.

A candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize is brutally stabbed to death in central Stockholm just after a meeting with two lawyers from the war tribunal in The Hague. One of the witnesses worked with Alex when she was in the Middle East.