Hanno Koffler

Within a few weeks, two murdered lovers were found in the Göhrde state forest in Lower Saxony in the summer of 1989. The popular local recreation area was quickly given the name "Totenwald" in public. When another woman later disappears, in contrast to the previous murders, the police quickly have a suspect on hand: the husband of the disappeared. His brother-in-law, a high-ranking criminal investigator, does not believe in his guilt. The investigation is said to drag on for decades and only after his retirement does he come across revealing inconsistencies in the investigation in the early 1990s. Could this reveal the entire secret of the "forest of the dead"?

When a gruesomely staged body is found, propped up on a mountain pass in the Alps close to the German-Austrian border, two detectives are sent to investigate. For German detective Ellie, this is the first real challenge of her career; her Austrian counterpart Gedeon though seems to have lost any ambitions in his job. Very soon, they discover more crime scenes with symbolically posed victims, reminiscent of pagan rituals. It all seems to be part of a bigger, sinister plan. Ellie finds herself under increasing pressure to understand the deranged killer's motives so she can stop him. The hunt leads them ever deeper in the dark valleys and archaic Alpine customs - and the paranoid world of the killer.

Robert Schlag, nicknamed "Beat", is a Berlin club promoter who lives for the excesses of sex, drugs and the city nightlife. His connections to the underworld lead the police to use Beat to try and infiltrate a notorious organ smuggling ring.