A hot Tuesday morning in August, Tom Schrøder is granted his first leave from prison. Three hours accompanied by two officers. He will be be back in the Kongsvinger prison by eleven o’clock. But Schrøder never comes back. He kills one of the prison officers and leaves town with the other. The most dangerous man in the country is on the lam. He is armed, and he has a hostage. The residents of the town are asked to stay indoors and lock their doors in the intense heat of the late summer.

Tom Schrøder, a feared criminal since his late teens, was convicted of a brutal double homicide twelve years ago. In recent years, however, he has been a model prisoner and earned a transfer to a low-security prison. In two years, he could have been a free man. He is fifty-two years old. If he’s caught now, he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars. Why run now?

In Sandefjord, Schrøder’s lawyer is on his summer holidays when he receives news of his most infamous client’s escape. By then, several hours have passed since the incident – Tom Schrøder could be anywhere. The lawyer’s greatest fear is that someone in the prison may have told Tom his big secret.

Then the worst thing possible happens. And the road to downfall has no end.