Masterpiece Mystery Popping pills for anxiety, Kurt Wallander has been a basket case for months, since shooting a vicious killer in self defense. Too depressed to return to active duty, he unthinkingly brushes off a request by his friend Sten Torste... (more)nsson to investigate the suspicious death of Sten's father, Gustaf. But when Sten himself dies — an apparent suicide — Wallander feels compelled to follow up the clues to learn what really happened. Gustaf supposedly died while driving too fast on a seaside road. But why wasn't the key in the ignition at the accident scene? Sten perished by allegedly hanging himself. But why does he have an injury that looks like a karate chop to the throat — a wound also found on Gustaf? Both men were legal counsels to international philanthropist Alfred Harderberg, who got an anonymous threatening postcard identical to one mailed to Sten before his death. Wallander traces one of the postcards to the Eider Duck Hotel, a vacation spot where Wallander used to go as a boy with his father. The elderly proprietors remember Kurt well, and they also remember a quarrelsome middle-aged man and young woman who were guests around the time the card was sent. The search for these menacing correspondents leads to a conspiracy of horrific dimensions, to more bloodshed, and to a case that Wallander cracks with the help of a disgraced former police officer who killed a person and is paying a punishing psychic penalty.