Grainy CCTV footage shows a man walking into a bank and putting a gun to the cashier’s head. He tells her to count to twenty-five. When he doesn’t get his money in time, she is executed. Detective Harry Hole, still mourning the death of his police partner, is assigned to the case. While his girlfriend is away in Russia, an old flame gets in touch but when he goes to dinner at her house he wakes up back at home with no memory of the past twelve hours. That same morning, the girl is found shot dead in her bed and shortly after Harry begins to receive threatening emails: is someone trying to frame him for this unexplained death? As he fights to clear his name, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery...