Lennart Persson

The Guldbagge Awards is an official and annual Swedish film awards ceremony honoring achievements in the Swedish film industry. Winners are awarded a statuette depicting a rose chafer, better known by the name Guldbaggen. The awards, first presented in 1964 at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, are overseen by the Swedish Film Institute. It is described as the Swedish equivalent of the Academy Awards. The awards ceremony was first televised in 1981.

A series of grisly murders where the victims faces have been removed by acid starts to turn up around Stockholm. Detective Martin Beck and Gunvald Larsson are once again drawn into the darkness.

In a Swedish industrial community people are forced into unemployment to turn a iron-works company's negative profitability trend. Martin Holmbäck arrives from Stockholm to effect the layoffs.