On the eve of what would have been the wedding of the year, Anneli Hammar, the beautiful and happy bride-to-be, vanishes. One moment she was waving to a friend on her way to inspect her bridal bouquet; the next she was gone, as if the earth had swallowed her up.

A nightmare of suspicions follows, questions with no answers - and at the centre of a tangled web of lies stands the mysterious and wealthy man that was to have been Anneli's husband.

Chief Inspector Christer Wick of the Stockholm Crime Squad investigates and in what turns out to be a double murder case the fragrant lily-of the-valley bouquet is a tantilising and vital clue.