The judge is hooded. The sentence is ancient. And the execution has only just begun.

For Detective Inspector Maria Wern, the greatest battle is no longer on the streets of Visby, but within the walls of her own home. After a catastrophic accident leaves her husband, Björn, paralyzed and unable to speak, Maria is trapped in a waking nightmare. But when a young man's body is pulled from the frigid Baltic waters, duty calls her back to a case that is far more twisted than a simple drowning.

While Maria struggles to trust the mysterious personal assistants now caring for her husband, a deeper darkness is rising. On Midsummer's night, nineteen-year-old Elin Rute wakes to find her boyfriend murdered-only to be coerced by her parents into a secret that will haunt her forever.

The trail leads to the infamous Gallows Hill, an ancient execution site where the stones are stained with centuries of blood. A shadowy group calling themselves The Watchmen has claimed the hill as their private court. Their mission: to hunt down those they deem traitors and subject them to 'historical punishments' from a more brutal age.

With every execution filmed and broadcast by a leader who knows no mercy, Maria finds herself in a race against a killer who blends medieval cruelty with modern technology. As the line between her crumbling personal life and the gruesome investigation blurs, Maria realizes that on Gallows Hill, no one is ever truly acquitted.

In the haunting twenty-second installment of the Maria Wern series, international bestseller Anna Jansson weaves together the ghosts of the past and the terror of the present. Some hills were built for dying-and the Watchmen are waiting for their next guest.

'Anna Jansson is a skilled and experienced writer who drives the plot forward with fast and efficient prose... she knows how to give us a fright, Anna Jansson.' - Gotlands Tidningar Sweden