Old bones comes to light on a remote farm in the north of Iceland. Detective Helgi Svavarsson is reluctant to get involved with what looks like something he feels calls for an archaeologist rather than a policeman. In any case, he's off-duty and has other fish to fry. But he can't help but be intrigued as suspicion falls on the now elderly woman who farmed at Fagrabrekka for so many years, and what became of the man who caught the bus south one winter afternoon, forty-two years ago?