A 90-year-old man is found dead in his bed, smothered with his own pillow. On his desk the police find newspaper cuttings about a murder case dating from the Second World War, when a young woman was found strangled behind Reykjavik's National Theatre. Konrad, a former detective, is bored with retirement and remembers the crime. He grew up in "the shadow district", a rough neighbourhood bordered by the National Theatre and an abattoir. Why would someone be interested in that crime now? He starts his own unofficial enquiry. Alternating between Konrad's investigation and the original police inquiry, we discover that two girls had been attacked in oddly similar circumstances. How are these cases linked across the decades? And who is the old man?

Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb