A metropolis in turmoil. From economy to culture politics to the underworld--everything is in the grip of radical change. Speculation and inflation are already tearing away at the foundations of the still-young Weimar Republic. Growing poverty and unemployment stand in stark contrast to the excesses and indulgence of the city's nightlife and its overflowing creative energy. Gereon Rath a young police inspector from Cologne is transferred to Berlin to solve a criminal case: a porno ring run by the Berlin Mafia. What at first glance appears to be a simple extortion case soon turns out to be a scandal that will forever change the lives of both Gereon and his closest associates. With his partner Bruno Wolter and stenotypist Charlotte Ritter Rath confronts a tangled web of corruption drug dealing and weapons trafficking that forces him into an existential conflict as he is torn between loyalty and uncovering the truth. Who is friend who is foe? With the political unrest spurred by May Day demonstrations and rising National Socialism even an institution like the "Rote Burg" Berlin's police headquarters and the center of democracy and the constitutional state is increasingly becoming the melting pot of a democracy whose days are numbered.