At the bottom of a lake, the police find a car with a wax corpse in the trunk. It is 15-year-old boarding school student Alex, who has been missing for five years. With the sad certainty that she has been murdered, the case, which should have been closed, takes a completely new turn. Her teacher, the charismatic Hajo Rick, convicted of her murder on the basis of circumstantial evidence and witness statements, could be innocent after all! When the ambitious defence lawyer Sophia Dreyer obtains a retrial, the former investigator finds himself in trouble: Chief Inspector Kai Matzen now has to throw the certainties of the past overboard - and realize that he is more personally involved than he would like. Sophia also suspects that she can't trust anyone. And what if it was Hajo Rick after all? Dreyer and Matzen investigate independently of each other, each in their own interest, and reconstruct Alex's last hours. In the process, they uncover an intrigue.

After the body of a young woman is recovered from Lake Mattsee, the two cops not only face a major professional challenge that takes them into the dark past, but also come into contact with Mattsee's dark history and reach their limits privately.

Salzburg. A few weeks before Christmas. Franz, in his late forties, secretly dreams of a career as a rock guitarist, but in real life he ekes out an unsuccessful existence as a music teacher. In addition, his marriage to Linn is in deep crisis and the pubescent daughter Julie hardly speaks to her parents.

Grumpy widower Walter lives alone with his dog in Regensburg and spends his time writing restaurant reviews on the internet. But when he meets his old childhood sweetheart, art professor Alice, whom he had unsuccessfully proposed to 40 years earlier, his life changes radically once again.

After many years, geologist Ina Sedlitz returns to her home village of Neukirch - a place that has been transformed from a former brown coal mining area into a popular tourist destination. Ina only wants one thing: to transfer her inheritance of the family hotel to her niece Mara and finally put the past behind her. But when she is asked to draw up a geological report for the man-made lake, she comes across dangerous instabilities - and the shadows of a long-suppressed family secret.