January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjovallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene.

Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andrens, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andren family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the nineteenth-century diary of an Andren ancestor--a gang master on the American transcontinental railway--that describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

From the Hardcover edition.