WaPo Bodensee

For Nele Fehrenbach, a water police officer who has just moved from Hamburg to Lake Constance, her start in her new job couldn't have begun in a more mysterious way. The yacht, which is drifting aimlessly toward the shore, shows traces of blood. Then the yacht owner's body is found near the shore.

Lake Constance: A Haven for Money. When old Politz's boat explodes in the middle of the night on the lake, it quickly becomes clear that this cannot have been an accident. Even though Nele's colleague Andreas Rambach claims the boat was held together by nothing more than "oil and spit," evidence of his intent to smuggle soon comes to light.

It's a good thing Nele listens to her mother, Mechthild, every now and then. "A family is only as strong as its weakest link," she tells her daughter. And that turns out to be the key to solving her latest case. Because after Nele and Spitznagel discover a destroyed rail nest in the reeds in front of the Rau Guesthouse, a very strange story begins to unfold.

On the shore of Lake Constance lies a dead man—a groom—murdered on the most beautiful night of his life. But this Konrad Ferch had been harassed at his wedding by the drunk boatbuilder André Pohl because he hadn't paid for the wedding gift, an expensive motorboat.

A burning dugout canoe on Lake Constance brought the *WaPo* into the picture. That's because a young woman also perished in the fire along with the canoe. Corinna Weingold, a dropout, had been living on Professor Herbert Zittlau's property and was suffering from an incurable brain tumor.

Because the boat pulling him suddenly suffered engine trouble, Marvin, a student who was waterskiing, was injured and is now fighting for his life in the hospital. His friend Lukas is blaming himself heavily. Initial suspicion falls on environmental activist Frederike Löffler, who is handing out flyers in front of the club.

Patrick Heuser robbed a cash-in-transit van on the Swiss side of the border, dumped his accomplice Roman Wüstel into Lake Constance while fleeing by boat, and now wants to start a carefree life abroad with his heavily pregnant girlfriend Jenny. But Patrick has been shot, and the getaway car—with the plane tickets in the glove compartment—was unfortunately towed away from a no-parking zone.

The coxswain of a rowing four from a prestigious boarding school on Lake Constance remains missing despite his teammates' frantic search. Nele quickly realizes that the boarding school is governed by its own set of rules—a dangerous shadow realm with its own rulers and forbidden deals.

A Midsummer Night's Dream turns into a nightmare: of all places, during the Lake Night Festival, right in the middle of the spectacular fireworks display, a man is shot on one of the spectator boats: Uli Kowalski, a former sailing instructor and a sort of father figure to everyone else on the boat—the victim of a gunman on a rampage?

"Was this the work of a psychopath?" Nele Fehrenbach and Pirmin Spitznagel wonder as they discover a dead ostrich with numerous stab wounds while running along the shore. Pirmin suspects a budding serial killer—someone who kills animals first before moving on to humans. And sure enough, he discovers someone who might fit the profile.

Did real estate agent Ruth Meixner kill herself? At least, her body was found floating in a rowboat on the lake with an overdose of morphine in her blood. But then it turns out that her body had been moved after she had already died. Neighbor Marianne Genzgen and her somewhat eccentric son Felix immediately suspect the deceased woman's violent boyfriend, the pharmacist Alex Hellweg.

Alfred Fischer, a resident of a luxurious retirement home, was found dead, floating in the water. This seems to be business as usual for the WaPo, since his heavily indebted nephew and sole heir, Reto Neumann, had just been visiting his murdered uncle.

Sascha, an intern at the "Seeperle" hotel, reports that his girlfriend and coworker Vanessa disappeared without a trace after a nighttime picnic on the lakeshore.

After 100 years, does a legendary sea monster from Lake Constance seek out its victims in the home of the head of the water police? According to legend, the Seemärling then takes three maidens on three consecutive nights to drag them into the depths of the lake.

It all looks like a typical WaPo story: A poacher disguised as a fisherman is caught, but manages to evade the police thanks to his nimble getaway boat. Meanwhile, Nele Fehrenbach and her colleague Paul Schott find the body of Otto Brunner, a wealthy large-scale farmer who was shot, right nearby on the shore.

A sailboat that had long been reported missing is found drifting on Lake Constance—and on board is a TV starlet who was also reported missing, but who simply cannot remember how she got there. It quickly becomes clear that Nana von Lohe is the daughter of a famous, now-deceased plastic surgeon who ran his clinic on the lake.