Footage from a surveillance camera: a hooded man enters a bank in Oslo, presses the barrel of a gun to a female employee's head, and orders her to count to twenty-five. When he doesn't get the money within the specified time, he pulls the trigger. The woman falls dead, and two million Norwegian kroner disappear without a trace.

After a dinner and a heavy drinking session at the home of his old flame Anna Betzen, detective Harry Hole wakes up at his house with a headache, without his phone, and with no memory of the last twelve hours of his life. On the same day, Anna is found dead with a bullet in her head in her bedroom, and Hole is the main suspect. Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unabated violence, and Oslo's police scoundrel makes unholy deals with the legendary imprisoned gypsy Raskol Baxet and begins a dizzying race from the Norwegian capital to scorching Brazil to solve two cases simultaneously and clear his name. But Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, has not yet said her final word.