It seems routine at first when Commissioner Jan Fabel and his colleagues Werner Meyer and Maria Klee are called to a dead girl on the banks of the Elbe in Hamburg-Blankenese. It's not the only murder. The murderer apparently selects his victims at random, but all of them have connections to Grimm fairy tale motifs. Based on the literary models of Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood, the bloody trail runs right through Hamburg. Unrest and fear among the population are growing day by day, from deed to deed. At the same time, a book made headlines: the author Gerhard Weiss expressed the thesis that one of the Brothers Grimm was a serial killer. What does the mysterious writer know about the crimes, does he want to turn his remarks into reality or does he inspire the perpetrator with his book? Jan Fabel must stop the death streak before the fairy tale killer continues his horrible work. The feverish search begins.

Always the same picture at the crime scene. The victims were executed according to a Viking punishment ritual, the so-called "blood eagle". But the murderer does not kill in secret. He emails Chief Inspector Fabel encrypted messages. Fabel and his colleagues Maria Klee, Anna Wolff and Henk Herrmann as well Criminal psychologist and Fabel's partner Susanne Eckhardt is faced with a brutal serial killer. The first two victims - a lawyer and a prostitute - have nothing in common. Only the prostitute's landlord, Hans Klugmann, a former police officer and now on the payroll of the Turkish mafia, is suspicious When Anna Wolff and Henk Herrmann follow the lead, they witness a gang war between rival Turkish and Ukrainian mafia groups.

A series of murders shakes Hamburg: first a well-known singer-songwriter is murdered and scalped, then a renowned scientist. The highly professional killer leaves no usable traces at the scene of the crime apart from a strand of red hair. Why does someone kill in such a brutal way? Why does he spray his victims with red paint before scalping them. And why does he know every step of detective inspector Jan Fabel? One thing seems clear: More murders will follow. Fabel and his team are investigating at full speed. The traces quickly lead to the left-wing student scene of the 1980s. The victims knew the terrorist Franz Mühlhaus, who was shot dead during a police operation. Shortly before their deaths, both telephoned the esotericist Beate Brandt. She, too, once belonged to the Mühlhaus environment and evidently knows more than she would like to admit. Does she want to protect her violent son Thomas, who was released from custody shortly before the start of the murder series?

Carnival in Cologne. The people are dancing in the streets and the only thing that counts is having fun! But the Rhenish High Commissioner Benni Scholz has lost his laughter. He has two unexplained murders of women in his files from the last two years, apparently committed by a cannibal and always on the same day: Weiberfastnacht. Scholz fears that the killer will strike again this year. That's why he brings in the experts for serial offenders: Jan Fabel from the Hamburg Homicide Commission. The fact that Fabel actually supports his colleagues has completely different reasons: his colleague Maria is in Cologne on a revenge campaign against her Ukrainian tormentor Witrenko. Fabel hopes to find Maria before she finds Witrenko - or vice versa.

Chief Inspector Jan Fabel can't believe it: The "Angel of St. Pauli" is back. As early as ten years ago, a number of conspicuous murders of men were committed - men who had previously abused, mistreated and used women. The murders suddenly stopped on their own, without there being any concrete trace of the alleged perpetrator - one of Fabel's greatest investigative slip-ups. And now the "angel" has apparently struck again, because the current murder is like those from the past down to the last detail. At the same time, Margarethe Paulus is able to escape from the closed psychiatric ward in which she has been incarcerated for over 13 years. Which is remarkable in this context, since before her arrest she was held responsible for acts of violence that were extremely similar to the "Angel" murders in the way they were carried out. Is there a connection? Soon there will be a second murder.