It is a cold, dark, windy night in Oslo, and Igi Heitmann pores over die debris in her dead fathers office, trying to piece together the last days of his life as a failed private eye. She discovers a curious butterfly medallion in his desk - which in turn leads to the discover}" of a young woman, Siv Underland, in a snow-drift, two bullets in her head and a gun in her hand. Igi learns that her father and the young woman died within hours of each other. Who killed Siv Underland, and did the same person kill Andreas Heitmann?Igi is an under-employed research psychologist, with more than enough problems of her own: her husband is a transvestite who often wakes up next to very attractive men instead of next to her. But she soon finds herself in the role of detective, on a trail that leads not only to the final days of her father and Siv Underland, but to the city"s underworld of corruption, sadism and child abuse.Igi is caught amongst the shards of a dozen shattered lives. She must tread carefully if she is to reconstruct the violent and tragic truth of those lives, and not be killed herself in the process.