Ulf Palme

After a young woman commits suicide, her neighbors try to piece together why she did it by tracking down her acquaintances.

Young Roland wants to write. In desperate need of money, he takes job at an advertising agency. He ends up in a department that advertise cosmetics. He is commissioned to do market research of a new remedy for pimples.

Atka Natas is a secret agent from the oppressive regime of Liquidatzia. He visits his estranged wife Vera, a chemist who is involved with a group of exiles trying to smuggle their compatriots out of Liquidatzia. Almkvist, an honest local policeman and former lover of Vera's, contacts her while investigating the death of one of the refugees. Natas has a list of agents operating in the host country and wants to sell them to the Americans. However before he can do so, Vera tries to kill him, after an argument about getting her parents out of Liquidatzia.