Letzter Gipfel

Real estate speculator Albert Hahn is found dead in his cellar. He died of fermentation gas poisoning. The doctor in charge assumes it was an accident. But Polt knows that the dead man was hated in the community. He suspects that the murderer wanted to make the death look like an accident. Many of the winegrowers had a motive. After a long investigation in the wine cellars, he discovers that all the cellars are connected by holes. Polt doesn't want to leave the feeling that it was a murder. As he drinks some wine with his friends, they all confess to the crime. They had all poisoned Albert Hahn with the fermentation gas together, but only one of them wants to take all the blame, as the rest have children and wives. He commits suicide and leaves a confession behind.

Gendarmerie inspector Simon Polt in the Weinviertel region finds it too much of a coincidence when crook Riebel is killed in a motorcycle accident and his friend Willi is found dead on the same day. But the residents of the otherwise peaceful Lower Austrian wine village make Polt's investigation anything but easy.

The latest Gasperlmaier case has almost ended in Ausseerland. On the day of the Pfeiffer's Day, of all days, a young musician is found dead on the Weißenbachalm pasture, and Gasperlmaier must once again embark on a criminal hunt. This time, too, the likeable police officer, Franz Gasperlmaier, can't rest. Not only is his beloved wife, Christine, traveling the world, leaving him alone with the household, but a new murder case is keeping Gasperlmaier on his toes. At the annual Pfeiffer's Day, where he is about to enjoy a fine schnapps with station commander Friedrich Kahlß, a scream shatters the peaceful atmosphere.

In this gruesome case, the likeable village policeman, Franz Gasperlmaier, needs particularly strong nerves. The tranquil Aussee summer idyll is disturbed by a terrible discovery in Lake Toplitz. A diver pulls a sawed-off hock from the water. But whose? Luckily, Gasperlmaier's mother-in-law knows the Aussee people very well and already has an idea who's up. The mother-in-law is proven right. The murdered man was last seen at the Altaussee Ski Club's fish dinner. Gasperlmaier and his new wife, Doctor Jolante Roth, suspect the murderer is among the guests. Time is running out, because a second terrible murder follows.

Editor-in-chief Daniel Käfer is unemployed. His magazine "Intelligence" was discontinued due to "too high a standard". Now he wants to think about his future in Ausseerland, where he spent his best summer vacations, but his return to the realm of his childhood turns out to be a dangerous labyrinth that entangles him in the dark secrets of the Ausseer people.

Daniel Käfer's time out in Ausseerland is coming to an end. He has to focus on his new career. But his journey ends in Hallstatt. His acquaintance with the young Gerd Gamsjäger and his mother leads to dramatic events. In his exuberance, Käfer causes a serious accident that almost costs his young friend his life. In an effort to make amends, he gets himself into even more trouble: with a dubious treasure map, he initiates excavations in search of a man in the salt. A huge embarrassment or the start of a new future?

A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contact when an invisible, unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside. Accompanied by her loyal dog Lynx, she becomes immersed in a world untouched by civilization and ruled by the laws of nature.

Village policeman Gasperlmaier has a tough time in his third case. He's immediately summoned from a funeral to the bathroom of a family home. There, he finds a dead body. Together with his new superior, the investigation begins. But the first death is followed by a second. More and more pieces of the puzzle are piecing together a grim picture from the past. There's little time left for Gasperlmaier and his new boss, and it seems his mother-in-law is also involved.

Much has changed for Simon Polt, a retired gendarmerie inspector. He's embarking on new career paths, and his future with his long-time girlfriend, Karin Walter, suddenly took on a completely new perspective. Polt has little contact with the police, who now watch over the small villages in the Wiesbach Valley—his only friend is Norbert Sailer, a law enforcement officer who's just his style. But the discovery of a stranger's body completely disrupts Simon Polt's quiet world: No one claims to have known the dead man, but some seem to know more about him than they're willing to admit to the police.

KILLING STELLA is an ice-cold examination of a failed marriage and the self-reproach of a wife and mother. It is a prequel to THE WALL in both literary and cinematic terms.

Simon Polt (Erwin Steinhauer) is no longer a gendarme. Arrived in retirement, he participates cheerfully in the Weinviertel on village life. When a corpse is found after a feast, his sense of right and wrong again becomes noticeable. The police do not see any third party debt. He sees it differently.

Even Franz Gasperlmaier had never seen anything like this before. He's seen a lot of things, after all, Gasperlmaier has been a police officer in Altaussee for more than twenty years. But a stabbed man on a Monday morning in the festival tent at the Altaussee Kirtag is too much even for a seasoned man like him. And so he makes a wrong decision, not his last one that day, and the dead man sitting in his own blood in the festival tent won't be the only victim.

Archduke Johann falls in love with Anna Plochl, the postmaster's daughter. Johann and his royal arranged bride both decline a dynastic alliance advised by minister Metternich in favor of their loves.

It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast.