Hamburg is rocked by a series of murders targeting Muslim refugees, stirring deep-seated unrest and threatening the delicate balance of German society. The urgency to find and arrest the assassins intensifies as the potential for irreparable harm looms large.

Anna Ostmann, a veteran detective with Hamburg's Criminal Police, leads the investigation. However, the exceptional intuitive powers that have defined her career are rapidly becoming a heavy burden, threatening her mental stability.

In a race against time, the paths of several individuals intersect with the murders: Gerhard Kleist, a newly appointed police officer in the homicide department; Richard and Elise Manshofer, a couple whose recent marriage is strained by Elise's involvement in the incendiary project of a media tycoon crusading against Islam, and Richard's role in a doomed construction project in Hamburg's port; Nabil Halabi, a young Syrian refugee who, in taking his first steps into a new life full of promise, finds himself entangled in a situation far worse than the terrors he fled; and a mysterious man who arrived in Hamburg on the eve of the first murder. Each one, in their quest for a resolution, must face their own personal demons — some proving to be more fearsome than the visage of the murderer haunting Anna Ostmann from the depths of the Elbe River.

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