Cruxdorf, a small town on the border with Denmark, where you can smell the North Sea. This is where Moritz Wendtal runs his bookstore. The pharmacy used to be housed in the house. And aren't books also a kind of medicine? Wendtal has the right reading for everyone. Because of his imagination and powers of deduction, many writers turn to him for help - and recently also Heinrich Uhlen, the always overwhelmed village policeman. Because Gerhard Brix, the mayor, has been burgled. Nothing was stolen, but the living room was devastated, and on the cupboard, like a bloody threat, hangs a tin of tomato juice, impaled with a hunting knife. And what is the mysterious poem in the family's mailbox all about? If Wendtal's curiosity hadn't been aroused long ago, he would no longer be able to watch Heinrich's amateurish investigations. He investigates the mysterious events in Cruxdorf itself.