A young girl is hiding somewhere in Ystad. It is obvious that she has seen something terrible and that someone wants her silenced. At the same time a trial of human traffickers starts, and both Wallander and district prosecutor Katarina Ahlsell receive death threats, forcing them to assess their jobs as well as their own relationship.

A woman is found murdered in her flat, and in the subsequent investigation the loyalty of one of Wallander's young colleagues is put to the test.

A cider manufacturer is murdered during a business party. When more people with connections to the business are killed, Wallander starts suspecting that the killer is to be found within the company. And is there perhaps more than one killer?

A cottage by the sea, owned by a local charity that lets it out to the public, is ravaged by a gas explosion. The burned corpse of a man is found inside and a badly burned woman is found outside, who dies in hospital before she's able to talk. When they are identified later, a web of betrayal, secrets and love affairs is revealed. The woman's husband, who was also the business partner of the dead man, is immediately suspected. But then he too is murdered...

A girl in a choir disappears and is later found dead; then her best friend in the choir also disappears. Suspicion falls on a strange man who has been seen in the neighbourhood.

When a small-time crook is killed by a sniper, Wallander and the Ystad police investigate.

When a security van is robbed, Wallander suspects a leak inside the security company.

A priest is shot outside a low budget hotel in Ystad and is fighting for his life in hospital. Who would want to kill a priest? Wallander has no clues, until he finds out that the priest was having an affair. Who had the strongest motives? The priest's wife or the deceived husband?

The police go to great lengths to protect a cellist who is due to testify in a Russian mafia trial.

Homes are burgled and a vigilante group is formed. Soon Wallander is convinced there's been a double murder, although no bodies have been found.

After the murder of a motorcyclist, the investigation soon reveals that bike racers are being used as drug couriers from Denmark to Sweden, and that the killing was part of a power struggle within the Yugoslav drug cartel that is running the couriers. When one of Wallander's colleagues is attacked in her home, it's obvious that one of the cartel leaders will let nobody stand in his way.

When a young boy goes missing, suspicions immediately fall on a previously convicted paedophile, and vigilantes start attacking him and his elderly mother. However, when the boy is found dead with a high dosage of a sedative, Wallander starts to look elsewhere for the killer.

Wallander has bought a dream house by the sea, but his peace and quiet is soon shattered when a man is murdered and several car bombs are detonated. The local populace suspects Islamic extremists, but when the army is called in, Wallander believes otherwise.