"It is 1933 and a dead man has been found lying under railway arches in Berlin. An old soldier, hideously disfigured, he has been killed mysteriously. Gereon Rath is brought onto the case while his fiancee, Charlotte Ritter, blazes her own trail. Meanwhile, the Nazis consolidate their hold on power, the Reichstag is burned down, and things become a lot worse not only for Berlin's Jewish community but also for those police officers who can remain in...

During the fall of 1929 in Berlin, the weeks before Black Friday's stock market crash were tumultuous. Inspector Gereon Rath and Charlotte Ritter are assigned to investigate the death of an actress, only to realize that the film industry is as rotten as the underworld.