EnglishOskar is a 12-year-old-boy who is being bullied at school. He lives with his mother, who is loving and with whom he initially seems to have a good connection. His father is an alcoholic who lives out in the countryside. Oskar seems intelligent, has morbid interests including crime and forensics and keeps a scrap book filled with newspaper cuttings about murders. He befriends who he thinks is a new girl who moved in next door - Eli. Eli lives with an older man Håkan, a former teacher who was fired and became a homeless vagrant when he was discovered to be a pedophile. Eli is revealed to be a vampire, who was originally a boy. He was castrated about 200 years ago and was turned into a vampire. The two children develop a close relationship and Eli helps Oskar fight back against his tormentors. Throughout the book their relationship gradually becomes closer and they reveal more of themselves and in particular Eli's lengthy history.
Håkan serves Eli, whom he loves, by procuring blood from the living, fighting against his conscience and choosing victims who he can physically trap, but who are not too young. Eli gives him money for doing this, though Håkan makes it clear he would do it for nothing if Eli allowed them to be physically intimate. Eli keeps the money in several boxes, along with a variety of different puzzles. These, apart from a few items of clothing and food, are all that fill the apartment. After several failures to acquire enough blood for Eli, Håkan offers to go out one last time if they can spend the night together. With the caveat that he may only touch Eli, they agree, but it is stipulated that Håkan must get the blood first.
Håkan's attempt to get blood from the last victim fails, and he disfigures himself on purpose with acid to avoid the police tracing Eli through him. When Eli finds Håkan in the hospital, he offers his own blood and is drunk dry while sitting on the window ledge, but a guard interrupts them and Eli fails to kill him. So that he will not end up becoming a vampire such as Eli, Håkan throws himself out of the window to the ground below. The fall kills him, but he is later resurrected as a vampire, though a mindless one that seeks only to find Eli. Håkan manages to trap and sexually assaults Eli in a basement, but Eli escapes, and Håkan is later beaten immobile and harmless. Meanwhile Lacke suspects a child is responsible for the murder of his best friend, Jocke (whom Eli murdered for blood before snapping his neck). Later, he sees Eli as a small, shapeless creature who leaps from the trees at his sometimes girlfriend, Virginia. Eli attempts to drink her blood, but is interrupted by Lacke. Virginia succumbs to vampirism, but does not realize her "infection" until she attempts to prolong her life by drinking her own blood, and finds that exposure to the sun causes boils on her skin. In the hospital Virginia deliberately exposes herself to daylight and bursts into flames.
After Oskar fights back and injures his main tormentor, the boy's older brother hunts down and attempts to hurt him in revenge. Oskar further incurs their wrath when he sets fire to their desks, destroying a precious photo album of their father's. They then corner Oskar in the local swimming pool and attempt to drown him. Eli, however, comes to Oskar's rescue and kills two of the other boys, and the two flee the city with the remaining money, puzzles and each other.
ItalianoOskar è un bambino di dodici anni vittima di atti di bullismo a scuola. Stringe amicizia con Eli, una bambina che da poco abita nell'appartamento accanto con un vecchio uomo di nome Håkan. Nel quartiere dove abitano iniziano a verificarsi efferati e inquietanti omicidi, che gettano nel terrore l'intera comunità. Solo Oskar, collezionista di articoli di giornali riguardanti argomenti crudi, rimane affascinato dalle gesta di questo killer (all'inizio è anche preoccupato di essere fautore degli omicidi per qualche via soprannaturale quando, a causa della sua abitudine di colpire con un coltello un albero simboleggiante alcuni bulli, in contemporanea al suo attacco all'albero, un giovane viene ucciso in un paese vicino), e immedesimandosi in questo immagina di poter uccidere i suoi aguzzini. Intanto l'amicizia con Eli si fa sempre più profonda, nonostante la ragazzina manifesti alcuni lati inquietanti: esce solo di notte, sembra insensibile al freddo, ha una strana agilità e un'abilità straordinaria nel risolvere i puzzle. Intorno ai due protagonisti della vicenda si snodano le vicissitudini di molti altri personaggi, solo apparentemente secondari. Tra essi spicca proprio l'anziano e misterioso compagno della bambina Eli, Håkan, ma anche Tommy, un altro vicino di casa di Oskar, di poco più vecchio: uno dei pochi coetanei con cui il protagonista riesca ad avere un buon rapporto.