A time capsure is unearthed from a school playground containing a threat of murders to come. As Freyja and Huldar look for the writer, the murders start...

Dark secrets and corruption emerge in the thrilling second novel in Yrsa Sigurdardottir's Children's House series. Yrsa Sigurdardottir, winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for best Scandinavian Crime Novel, delivers another tour de force in her second novel in the Freyja and Huldar series.

In 2016 the following people are going to die: K, S, BT, JJ, OV and I. Nobody will miss them. Least of all me. I can't wait.

This is the chilling message found in a school's time capsule, ten years after it was buried. But surely, if a thirteen-year-old wrote it, it can't be a real threat...

Huldar suspects he's been given the investigation simply to keep him busy and away from real police work. He turns to Freyja to help with the psychology of the child who hid the note. Soon, however, they find themselves at the heart of another shocking case...

For the discovery of the letter coincides with a string of macabre events: body parts found in a garden, followed by the murder of the man who owned the house. His initials are BT... and now time is running out to identify the writer, the victims and the killer, before further deaths come.