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Sheriff Cnut's often heard plea – 'Oh, please give me a nice fresh corpse' is not what he is faced with in this case.The bones found are those of a seventeen year old girl, who was six months pregnant when she was murdered and buried, between five and fifteen years back.Cnut knows that every year, more than two hundred and fifty Oslo residents are reported missing. Of that number, almost three quarters are teenagers, the majority of them girls.The ten-year period the pathologist suggests means that Cnut has to consider around fifteen hundred girls as candidates for the skeleton, and the only things he has to go on are the DNA, the height and the approximate weight of the dead girl, and a piece of the wool skirt she had been wearing, along with the metal buckle of her disintegrated belt, formed in the shape of an ouroboros.He and his detectives attempt to obtain the DNA of a parent or sibling in every case, but of those that are available, not one is a match for the skeleton.Progress is slow, as they work through the possible contenders, until only a few are left. One is Silje Aldersen, reported missing by her landlady, and it is impossible to obtain the DNA of one of her relatives, because her mother is dead, and she is estranged from her abusive father, so she gets put to the bottom of the pile, until the landlady, who has been on holiday, returns.She remembers the skirt and the belt buckle, and they finally have their victim, but instead of the case becoming easier, it becomes far messier, with other corpses, buried later, found in various locations, one of them by the same killer who murdered Silje.Cnut becomes sure of the killer, but has no proof that will stand up in court, and he is becoming bitter that the man will go free.Then that supposed murderer is severely injured in a deliberate hit and run attack, and Cnut realises that he could have been wrong.Faced with the only other possible candidate, he makes a move to unmask the killer that could end his career, sparking off an explosive finish, when both he and Ilse face violent death.