A young woman shivers in the December cold as her mother's body is laid to rest in a cemetery. The only thing that warms her is the thought of the revenge she will soon take . . .

Then a middle-aged man is killed at his home, shot twice in the chest and twice below the belt. He had recently received a series of bizarre phone calls where an old song is played down the line - evoking an eerie sense of both familiarity and unease. Before the police can find the culprit, a second man is killed in the same way.

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his team must dig far back into each man's past - but with few clues at each crime scene, can they find the killer before anyone else dies?