The great literary agent Ira Kusmansky gives an exclusive oyster dinner for her star authors in her house. While the gourmet chef Leni Silbernagel and the kitchen team put the finishing touches on the best-selling authors watch each other with eagle eyes. Faced with opulently filled food platters, one is brimming with spirit and poison. In the illustrious circle, the crime author Roswitha Reimers, Ingrid Sanzara, an author of cheerful women's novels, Susanne Trier, bestselling author and at the same time much envied TV presenter, Laura Lord, author of science fiction novels, the sex and crime writer Hermine Horkens and the kit author Stefanie shine force. The long-suffering supermother of the successful menagerie is the editor Barbara Gerhard.
Above all, the rumor hovers that the literary agent has a three-book contract worth millions to award, but only to one of the group. When the author Anna Stahlberg-Zeulig has to retire to an adjoining room because of nausea, that can't dampen the mood, the old feminist is out of the race anyway. She hasn't had a hit book in yearsreleased. A little later, the criminal police are in the villa, because Anna Stahlberg-Zeulig is dead. The Munich chief inspectors Ivo Batic, Franz Leitmayr and chief inspector Carlo Menzinger take up the investigation and get caught between the millstones of female striving for success. For Carlo Menzinger, this resulted in severe pain attacks, Ivo Batic found himself at the mercy of sexual assault, and Franz Leitmayr got into trouble with Isabelle Osten, the police spokeswoman.
A glimpse into the private spheres of successful women, and the mechanisms of the world of books, which is contested for power and the market, gradually leads the inspectors to believe that their investigations are just fodder for the women's fantasies. Then a second murder happens. None of the authors show their fear. But who will be next? Between books, brothel and libraries, the Munich investigators succeed in gaining insight into the worlds of women step by step, and in the end they can serve the writers their "murderer": not an artificial figure, but one of them, a lost soul.