Berlin, 1931.
A man is found dead beneath a railway bridge, with a communist slogan written next to him. At the crime scene, Inspector Gereon Rath encounters his former colleague Reinhard Greff, who now works for the Gestapo.

While Greff takes it for granted that this is a politically motivated murder, Rath's investigations lead in another direction. He discovers that the crime is linked to a dismantled crime syndicate that continues its activities camouflaged as a unit of the German paramilitary organization SA.

When a second brown-shirted man is found beaten to death, all signs point to a serial killer. Throughout the investigation, the political landscape becomes increasingly explosive: Gereon Rath's wife ends up in the SA's detention facilities, and the inspector finds himself trapped in a whirlwind of rapid developments that lead him into a situation of suffocating pressure: He must commit a murder himself. Will he succumb to the blackmail?

The German author Volker Kutscher skillfully captures crime and corruption in 1930s Berlin, which is decaying in the shadow of Nazism.

Discover the entire series featuring Inspector Gereon Rath:
*The Wet Fish
*Silent Death
*A Gangster in Berlin
*Case Homeland
*Operation Alberich
*The Luna Park