The body of a young Russian woman washes up on a remote Icelandic beach. She came looking for safety, but instead she found a watery grave.

A hasty police investigation determines her death as suicide and the case is quietly closed.

When Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavik police is forced into early retirement, she is told she can investigate one last cold case of her choice--and she knows which one. The Russian woman whose hope for asylum ended on the dark, cold shore of an unfamiliar country. Soon Hulda discovers that another young woman vanished at the same time, and that no one is telling her the whole story. Even her colleagues in the police seem determined to put the brakes on her investigation. Meanwhile the clock is ticking.