Winterlicht - Der Usedom-Krimi (2019)

Former detective Julia Thiel is investigating on her own at a property on the Baltic coast. She is discovered and has to flee, but tumbles down a steep cliff and is left injured. Her husband, Stefan, is worried because Julia, who had planned to take a few days’ wellness break, has not been in touch for some time. Stefan already suspects she is having an affair with a Polish colleague. He contacts Julia’s mother so they can search for her together. At the same time, Ellen Norgaard arrives in Usedom as the new detective and successor to the suspended Julia. Karin is not particularly pleased about it. Through her inquiries, Karin discovers that Julia was looking for a young neo-Nazi named Lutz Bahrmann, who was supposed to buy spirits in Poland for a motorcycle gang from Usedom. His mother had approached Julia and given her her son’s laptop. Karin goes with Stefan to Szczecin, where Julia was last seen. In Julia’s hotel room, they find a video on the son’s laptop showing the wanted German harassing and raping a young Polish woman in a laundry room. Karin and Stefan manage to track down the Polish woman, Milena, at a brothel in Szczecin, where she handles the laundry. She gives them information about where Julia may be. Shortly afterward, Bahrmann is fished out of the sea, decapitated. It turns out that he did not die in an accident involving a ship’s propeller; his head was severed only after his death. Norgaard then takes over the investigation. Julia is being held captive in a hunting cabin on the Baltic coast. She is injured, and her captors have given her only rudimentary care. When a man tries to rape her, she manages to kill him with an antler and escapes outside. When Karin, Stefan, and the police arrive, Julia is nowhere to be found at first. It turns out that Philipp Mölk, the motorcycle gang’s tax adviser, was in a relationship with Milena. He learned about Bahrmann’s rape and murdered him. By this time, Julia’s body is found by a sniffer dog.