Detective Paul Hjelm, member of an elite Swedish team assembled to investigate violent international crime, receives an urgent call from the FBI offices in America. A man has been found murdered at New York airport. The killer's violent methods bear a frightening resemblance to those of the notorious 'Kentucky Killer', a serial killer who was thought to have died some years before in a car crash witnessed by an FBI agent. The FBI believe that the killer has boarded a flight to Sweden but when the plane lands in Stockholm, he escapes without being identified. Soon, the bodies begin to pile up - some bearing the hallmarks of the Kentucky Killer's signature torture device: a weapon that squeezes shut the vocal chords. Has he somehow returned from the dead or do they have a copy-cat on their hands? And what does the killer want in Sweden?