Having exchanged the position of a military surgeon for a quiet life in provincial Gotzenburg, Dr. Altmann again finds himself in the thick of things. Having identified a photograph of wanted criminal Jandra Hevel published in a newspaper, the doctor, as a law-abiding citizen, reports this to the police, and now a reward has been promised for his head. The city police department, the mysterious group Hevel worked for, and Detective Eisenhart all want to know who killed Hevel and where the secret documents that the dead man obtained disappeared to. In such a situation, the doctor has no choice but to join the investigation... The second story, in which the narrator survives several attempts on his life, lifts the veil of secrecy over the science of death and visits a crow camp.