The year is 1883. The stark Icelandic winter landscape is the backdrop. We follow the priest, Baldur Skuggason, on his hunt for the enigmatic blue fox. And just as the priest pulls the trigger we are swept away to the world of the naturalist Fridrik B. Fridriksson and his charge, Abba, who suffers from Down's syndrome. When she was found shackled to the timbers of a ship run aground in 1868, Fridrik had fortuitously come to Abba's rescue.

The fates of all these characters are intrinsically bound, and gradually, surprisingly, unraveled in this spellbinding fable that is part mystery, part fairy tale.