Following a violent beating, Karl, a young monk, awakes in the local hospital with only a hazy recollection of what happened to him the previous night. Enter Chiara, an ambitious journalist who has caught wind of a story, and Erich, the police detective assigned Karl's case, and the two encounter one another in the monk's hospital room. While the case appears quite straightforward at first, it quickly reveals itself to be in fact part of a web of intrigue and criminal machinations which will weave its way to the very highest echelons of South Tyrolean society.