故事发生在哥本哈根，里奥（金·波德尼亚 Kim Bodnia 饰）是一名生活在那里的平凡男子。从普世的角度来看，里奥是一个彻头彻尾的失败者。无论是工作、家庭还是生活，里奥总是有本事将它们变得一团糟。在这个节骨眼上，里奥的妻子丽芙（丽芙·考菲克森 Liv Corfixen 饰）告诉他，自己怀孕了，这意料之外的孩子对于里奥来说无异于雪上加霜，他连自己都养不活，又有何德又能来抚养一个婴儿呢？ 一次偶然中，里奥结识了路易斯（Levino Jensen 饰），路易斯是一名俱乐部打手，在他的带领下，里奥踏入了一个他闻所未闻的新世界，这个世界运作的逻辑非常简单，那就是暴力至上。
Lewis returns to Oxford after several years absence and is reluctantly assigned by his new boss, DCS Innocent, to the murder of an Oxford mathematics student who was shot while participating in a sleep study. The key-code used to access the sleep lab was assigned to a fellow maths student, Daniel Griffin, but Daniel's math tutor has provided him with an alibi. Daniel is a maladjusted young man who will soon inherit his father's automotive empire. He is disruptive and has no respect for his uncle who now heads the company. The future of the company however rests on an impending deal with Japanese investors who insist that family unity is all important at this time. When two other murder occurs, Lewis must decipher a cryptic clue left in an old case file by his former boss, Chief Inspector Morse.
