Mihkel boards a ferry from his small town in Estonia to Saint Petersburg in Russia, on his way to Iceland, where he wants to make a new life for himself and his fiancée, Vera. His friend Igor, who emigrated to Iceland a few years earlier, convinces Mihkel to smuggle two bottles of liquid amphetamine and then seek payment from an Estonian priest, who is a business partner of Igor’s in Saint Petersburg. The priest is then to set him up in his new home and bring Vera over to join him. Rather than getting paid, he is instead coerced into swallowing seventy drug capsules to take on to Iceland. He arrives in Iceland and is picked up by Igor and his two Icelandic accomplices, Jóhann and Bóbó. However, in the next two days it becomes clear that something is wrong and Mihkel cannot pass the drugs. The Icelandic criminals become very nervous, and more and more frantic activity ensues as the situation becomes more serious.
The time is 20 years and a few months to the millennium, and the unrecognized, self-proclaimed genius Orm Odins has to deal with the age-old existentialist dilemma that is teenage hood. With his final exams looming, his hormones in overdrive and love just around the corner what can a great poet do to survive? Our setting is Reykjavik in the eighties, a city that is going through a growth spur not unlike our eloquent hero. The mullet is just about to put its mark on a unsuspecting generation, there is no TV on Thursdays, only one radio station, beer is still and outlawed commodity and somewhere within the city limits the first female president in the world will see has a dream.
The dentist Oscar has been married for five years and lives with his wife and adopted children. On the surface everything seems to be fine but Oscar is not a happy man. His wants a baby of his own flesh and blood but it's not working out. When he finds out that his wife has been deceiving him all these years he decides it's time for a change. Einar is a stockbroker who is very successful at work but not in his personal life. For the last couple of months Einar has been living at a hotel waiting for his wife to realize the terrible mistake she made by throwing him out. Katrin Rose returns from Sweden where she has lived for eight years. In Iceland Katrin has an eleven-year-old son, brought up by his grandmother and now Katrin wants him back. Katrin gets a job as a dentist's assistant intending to make a fresh start but her troubled past catches up with her.
Thirty-year-old Hlynur still lives with his mother and spends his days drinking, watching porn and surfing the net while living off unemployment checks. A girl is interested in him, but he stands back from commitment. His mother's Spanish flamenco teacher, Lola, moves in with them for Christmas. On New Year's Eve, while his mother is away, Hlynur finds out Lola is a lesbian, but also ends up having sex with her. He soon finds out he and his mother are sharing more than a house. Eventually he must find out where he fits into the puzzle, and how to live life less selfishly.
Five friends gather for a celebration that spins wildly out of control. Something goes terribly wrong. Next morning, national sports icon, swimmer Gulli Björns wakes up beside the naked body of a woman. No one knows who she is. No one knows where she comes from. Not his girlfriend. Nor his best buddy. No one remembers what happened. Now, as the questions fly fast and furious, Björns must wander through a mirrored maze of half-truth and full-blown lies to discover the shocking truth in a swirl of deception, manipulation and murder.