Chief Inspector Van Veeteren investigates the murder of Leopold Verhaven, a track star who lost his career and his freedom after being convicted of killing two of his ex-lovers, and who had just returned to society on the day he was killed.

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is called in to help the local police find a suspected serial killer who seems to choose his victims at random, but the case becomes more personal when a colleague is taken by the murderer, leading Veteren and the police on a chase to find their friend before it is too late.

In the middle of the night, a boy is struck by a car after leaving his girlfriend's house. The driver, drunk, leaves the boy's body by the side of the road and, wrestling with guilt, tries to put it all out of his mind, until a blackmail note arrives. In the meantime, Reinhart, the new chief inspector of the Maardam police force, has set his team to work. But a second, possibly related killing proves that this is no ordinary case. The police, desperate...

After hearing her mother's deathbed confession and following the dreary funeral, Maria Adler realizes she has no other option but to seize upon her mother's imperative to do something. Dissolving the life she loathes, Maria changes her appearance and disappears. When she emerges, revenge is her sole occupation. Inspector Van Veeteren and his associates are left bewildered by the curious murder of a man shot twice in the heart and twice below the belt....